Finis

Place Middle East: Ottoman Empire, Turkey, Dardanelles, Gallipoli
Accession Number ART00059
Collection type Art
Measurement sheet: 32.5 x 20.3 cm
Object type Work on paper
Physical description pen and ink on laid paper
Maker Hewett, Otho
Place made Ottoman Empire: Turkey, Dardanelles, Gallipoli
Date made 1915
Conflict First World War, 1914-1918
Copyright

Item copyright: Copyright expired - public domain

Public Domain Mark This item is in the Public Domain

Description

Depicts the old year (1915) personified by an old and ragged digger holding a sickle in one hand over his head and a time glass in the other hand. A gun shell has ripped off the arm carrying the glass and is propelling him forward. This work was used in 'The ANZAC Book', which was published in 1916 from illustrations, poems, stories and other creative works from the soldiers on the Gallipoli peninsula. In November 1915 CEW Bean, an official war correspondent and eventually official war historian, called for contributions for what was initially to be an ANZAC New Year magazine. Bean edited the work on the island of Imbros and after the Greek publisher fell through, arranged to have the work published in London by Cassell and Company. The book is composed of satirical and sombre pieces about the conditions of life at Gallipoli. It also provides a general outline of the April 25 landing at ANZAC Cove and the military advances, offensives and defensives undertaken in the following months until the eventual evacuation of the Allied forces at the end of December 1915. The introduction was written by General Sir W Birdwood, who explains how he named ANZAC Cove on the Gallipoli peninsula after the ANZAC forces. Bean contributed an editor's note in which he outlined the harsh conditions that the book was produced in, the significance it had taken on, and acknowledged the contributors.

Otho Hewett (1887- 1942) served with the 9th Light Horse Regiment and 3rd Light Horse Brigade Headquarters during the First World War. Trained as a designer is South Australia, he joined the ANZAC Divisional Headquarters at Romani as a panoramic artist and sketched each battlefield on the way to Jericho. He also contributed illustrations to Kia-Ora Coo-Ee, the magazine which was written and edited by Australian and New Zealand troops serving in Egypt, Palestine, Salonica and Mesopotamia, printed in Cairo and appeared in monthly issues between March and December 1918. Returning to Australia, Hewett lived in Adelaide during the 1920s and then moved to the town of Tintinara where he lived between 1929 and 1942, working as an artist, craftsman and cafe owner. He also made furniture and musical instruments. Hewett painted an Egyptian drop scene for the Tinitinara Hall when it opened in 1931 and died in 1942.