Forgotten Heroes

In May 2012 Tony Albert was commissioned as an official war artist and spent two weeks training with the North West Mobile Force (NORFORCE). As a result of his experiences in the Northern Territory Albert created a significant body of work celebrating the contribution of contemporary young Indigenous Australians to the defence of Australia. This appointment also inspired Albert as an artist to explore more closely his own family history of military service and the lack of acknowledgement received more broadly by Indigenous servicemen and women for their service. 'Forgotten soldiers' is one of several recent works by Albert focusing on these themes.

For a number of years the artist has been fascinated with the following story of his Grandfather Eddie Albert’s service as an escaped POW during the Second World War:
‘Using his agility and speed Eddie escaped the prison grounds and crossed Germany’s southern border into Italy. In Biella, a town in the northwest of Italy that lies at the foothills of the Alps, he and six other escaped Australian soldiers took refuge in a remote farmhouse on the outskirts of the town. Early one morning in late April, Italian soldiers found Eddie and the other escapees hiding in the farmhouse. Captured again he found himself in the worst situation to date – the men were ordered to line up side by side to be shot one by one. After the execution of the three men before him there was a halt in gunfire.

An Italian Officer-in-Charge ordered his men not to shoot. He identified the men as Allied soldiers and that they must be returned to Germany. Miraculously, Edward Albert and three of his companions survived the ordeal...'

The artist’s emotional response to the story of his Grandfather’s near death experience has drawn him to explore the role fate plays in determining who we are, black or white. Bullets have become visual metaphors within Albert’s practice for his Grandfather’s wartime experiences, symbolising both his survival of a firing squad and his treatment as an Aboriginal returned serviceman. The artist first explored his Grandfather’s story in Bullet, 2010. Most recently this history was the inspiration behind Albert’s design for a new public artwork for Hyde Park in Sydney to commemorate the service and sacrifice of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander servicemen and women.