Batemans Bay Hospital to host Australian War Memorial exhibition

The Australian War Memorial and Batemans Bay District Hospital have joined forces to present a unique First World War photographic display for patients and visitors to view over the next two weeks.

Anzac images, photographs from a Gallipoli doctor will go on display at Batemans Bay District Hospital from 25 July to 7 August.

The 21 images, captured by Australian surgeon Dr Charles Ryan, depict the forbidding landscape and gruelling life in the trenches over the eight-month Gallipoli campaign.
Dr Charles ‘Snodgrass’ Ryan lived a long and colourful life, including treating infamous bushranger Ned Kelly after his shootout with police at Glenrowan. Prior to this, Dr Ryan served as a surgeon with the Turkish Army in the Turko-Serbian War of 1876, only to later serve with the Anzac forces against his former Turkish comrades during the First World War.

With almost unrestricted access to all the Anzac front line and rear areas, his camera recorded the daily routine of men in the trenches, and the officers going about their work at their makeshift headquarters.

Dr Ryan originally distributed sets of the Gallipoli photographs to his friends following the war, who later donated a selection to the Australian War Memorial.

Exhibition curator, Senior Historian Peter Burness said Anzac images bring to life the Anzac soldiers’ life on the Gallipoli Peninsula, reflected in the display of mateship and endurance.

“Dr Ryan’s sensitivity, his empathy with those on both sides, and his eye for the remarkable and the everyday, all these qualities are apparent in his candid images. What also appeals is the fact that perhaps, being a doctor, they have a certain warmth and intimacy,” he said.

“Although he is said to have been a keen photographer, Ryan’s photos are rather amateurish in style, but they do have a wonderful natural and candid quality about them.”

Anzac images, photographs from a Gallipoli doctor will be on display at eight hospital venues between July and November 2015:

Dates and venues:

• Batemans Bay District Hospital, 25 July to 7 August 2015
• Bega District Hospital, 8 to 21 August 2015
• Cooma District Hospital, 22 August to 4 September 2015
• Goulburn Base Hospital, 5 to 18 September 2015
• Yass District Hospital, 19 September to 2 October 2015
• Wagga Wagga Base Hospital, 3 to 16 October 2015
• Bathurst Base Hospital, 17 to 30 October 2015
• Orange Base Hospital, 31 October to 31 November 2015