Labour battalion man

Depicts an unidentified labourer, wearing waterproof cape, rubber boots and a scarf tied over a protective tin helmet, resting on a spade. He has a contemplative expression on his face. Dyson was a socialist whose cartoons championed the working man. His beliefs are expressed in this drawing, which he captioned in his book 'Australia at war': ‘It is a sorry jest that they … should be the material in which war and the very great work out their soaring ambitions … But I am sometimes solaced by the feeling that their miseries are not very much grosser than those in which a grateful country found them when war made her cognisant of their civic existence.'

Will Dyson was the first Australian official war artist to visit the front during the First World War, travelling to France in December 1916, remaining there until May 1917, making records of the Australian involvement in the war. He was formally appointed as an official war artist, attached to the AIF, in May 1917, working in France and London throughout the war. His commission was terminated in March 1920.