The Forgotten Official War Artist
Ivor Hele (1912–1993) and Frank Norton (1916–1983) created more than 150 artworks for the collection of the Australian War Memorial. The only contemporary artistic responses made during the war by Australian artists, they are a valuable record of Australia’s involvement in the Korean War. In the years since, Hele’s work has had far more prominence than Norton’s. Just as the Korean War is often referred to as “the forgotten war” it seems that Norton is the forgotten official war artist.
Frank Norton was a technically trained painter and illustrator who specialised in maritime subjects. He was not a skilled portrait artist and his works do not depict sailors or provide insights into individuals’ emotions, thoughts, heroic achievements, or suffering. Instead, Norton’s Korean drawings document ships, the technological environments of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and the sea.
Ivor Hele’s prominence saw the Memorial organise a nationwide tour of his Korean pictures in 1955–56, hosted by state art galleries and curated in part by gallery directors. An offer to include Norton’s work was rejected on the grounds of their commercial qualities and the belief the works would not stand up in comparison. Hele’s superiority as an artist has seen the Memorial’s galleries, and Australia’s national memories of the Korean War, dominated by his paintings and drawings. When the Korean Gallery of the Australian War Memorial was redeveloped in 2006, Norton’s artworks were not included. Today the only Korean works by Norton which are on display in the Memorial are those made on board UN Aircraft Carriers, used to contextualise the display of a Hawker Sea Fury FB.11 fighter bomber.
Norton joined the RAN at HMAS Commonwealth naval base at Kure, Japan, on 26 June 1952. For the next five months he worked on patrol along the West Coast of Korea with the three Australian ships on station: HMAS Warramunga, HMAS Bataan, and HMAS Condamine. There were no naval battles such as those he had witnessed during the Second World War.
Instead, threats were posed by mines, enemy coastal artillery, and airstrikes. His works record activities, often mundane, related to the maintenance of the naval blockade, shore bombardments, anti-invasion, and escort duties. Between patrols he returned to Kure, where he had been given a studio on the waterfront.
Norton also recorded the UN Navy’s interactions with a Republic of Korea guerrilla force known as the Western Wolfpack, depicting aspects of the Wolfpack’s vital intelligence operations including their Island base.
ROK Wolfpack Headquarters (ART40011) and Taeyong Yong Do, US Marines headquarters (ART40012) were painted during a shore trip in August 1952, looking south from the highest point of Yeonpyeong Island to the army camp and the school and village beyond and east to the American base there.
Norton made several drawings of the village beach and the shanty huts erected by refugees on the island during the same shore trip. Throughout the conflict UN navies provided humanitarian aid to refugees who struggled to support themselves on the islands in the war zone. Norton’s drawings are significant as the only images of the island’s refugee camps and the guerrilla activities in the Memorial’s collection.
Weather hampered Norton’s visit to Yeonpyeong Island; it rained almost the entire time he was on shore. His drawings were damaged and he had to re-wash them at his studio at Kure. Norton strove to convey a sense of the Korean coastal landscape and waterways in his works. His palette of blues and greys often reflect the weather during patrols. His letters comment on the unpleasant conditions at sea caused by cramped living quarters and tropical weather.
While Norton’s works are illustrative – his choice of perspective and attention to detail presenting a unique record of the warfare carried out along the Korean coast – he is clearly not just a detached observer. Night Illumination, HMAS Warramunga (ART40007) which depicts the destroyer at anchor, lit by the glow of flares dropped from an American bomber, is a lovingly painted portrait imbued with romance. Norton’s passion for the navy is evident in his artworks, ensuring their popularity with veterans.