Orderly Room Sergeant

Depicts a portrait of an unidentified Orderly Room Sergeant. The artist , Henry Woollcott, served as a Private at the 3rd Australian Hospital at Abbeville, France, in July 1918. He met fellow artist Arthur Streeton here who recommended Wollcott to the then Director of the War Memorial, J. Treloar. Correspondence sent from Streeton to Captain Stewart in July 1918 notes of Woollcott; ' his present duties are in the Sisters Mess where he scrubs the floors, etc... Lt. Col. T.Y. ... asked me down to the hospital for a day or two, sent for Woolcott & his drawings and he certainly has considerable gifts... & 3 pencil portraits he showed me are remarkably good, I was astonished at his ability- he also showed a coloured design (quiet original & fine in cap [illeg.] & nothing mawkish about it) for a memorial stained glass window, quiet splendid & I wish I could design something as good, and told him so - he has had training also as a lithoprinter & understands lettering...and it seems to me that his gifts are absolutely wasted & lost as an orderly here...he is quiet...he says also that he can paint portraits ...but first wants to drop this scrubbing of floors and produce works of my kind with his remarkable talent'. (AWM 93 404/009/009). Woollcott painted this work while appointed as a war artist with the Australian War Records Service in London.