851598 Gnr. Hill, E.J. - skin graft foot

Places
Accession Number ART90899
Collection type Art
Measurement Overall: panel A: 13.8 x 7.8cm (irreg.); panel B: 14 x 6.4cm (irreg.); paper: 21 x 33.8cm; card: 22.2 x 34.2cm
Object type Work on paper
Physical description watercolour on two sheets mounted on paper on card
Maker Chalker, Jack
Place made Burma Thailand Railway: Nakom Paton
Date made 1944-1945
Conflict Second World War, 1939-1945
Copyright

Item copyright: AWM Licensed copyright

Description

Two feet, one before and the other after a skin graft. Jack Chalker was serving in the Royal Artillery when he was captured at the fall of Singapore. In October 1942 he was in a party sent to Thailand to construct the Burma-Thailand Railway. Chalker secretly made drawings of the various camps and conditions endured by the prisoners. He drew and painted on whatever materials he could find or steal from the Japanese, hiding his work in sections of bamboo buried in the ground, the attap roofs of huts, or the artificial legs worn by amputees in the hospital camps. His work provides a candid and moving record of the prisoners' suffering.