This painting, titled The Homecoming from Gallipoli, 15 July 1915, is by New Zealand artist Walter Armiger Bowring (1874 – 1931). It depicts soldiers returning home from the Gallipoli campaign in the First World War.
2779 New Zealanders – one-sixth of those who fought – died in the campaign.
Happy Christmas Eve! Here’s is a season-appropriate painting by French artist Timoléon Marie Lobrichon (1831-1914), titled La Vitrine du magasin de jouets.
New Zealand Mistletoe circa 1920, by Nina Jones (born in Christchurch in 1871, died in Nelson in 1926). Jones was a prominent New Zealand botanical artist.
Christmas Day in the London Bridge Canteen depicts HRH Princess Helena Victoria, creator and Chairman of the Ladies’ Auxiliary Committee of the YMCA paying a visit to workers during the First World War.
The princess, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria, was one of a number of royals to drop German names from her title at the outbreak of the war. She never married, but went on to live through both World Wars.
The image was created by war artist Clare Atwood in 1920. Atwood, an unusual woman for her time, was a known lesbian who lived in a ménage à trois relationship with two other women until their deaths.
Today is Christmas Eve according to the old calendar, and tonight millions of people (including Ukrainians like me) celebrate with a twelve-dish dinner.
With the disaster surrounding us and a house full of smoke, this is going to be an odd one.
This painting depicts Christmas dinner in the Ruhleben internment camp in Germany in 1917. The camp, located west of Berlin, housed between 4000 and 5500 mainly British prisoners during the First World War.
The work was created by Anglo-Dutch artist Nico Jungmann, who was interned at Ruhleben because he was a naturalised British citizen.
A World War One Australian propaganda poster by Norman Lindsay.
On the 4th of August, 1914, Britain declared war on Germany. As part of the British Empire, Australia – who had already begun war preparations – immediately became involved in the conflict.
Nearly 422 000 Australians – of a population of less than 5 million – served in the military during the First World War. More than half of them were killed or wounded.
From the collection of the Imperial War Museums
The body of British nurse Edith Cavell is depicted here being taken to Westminster Abbey in London for a state funeral on the 15th of May, 1919. The image was created by English artist Henry Rushbury.
Cavell, who had helped Allied soldiers escape German-occupied Belgium during the First World War, was arrested by German authorities and executed by firing squad on the 12th of October, 1915.
Cavell’s killing sparked international outrage, and the incident was used in war propaganda in the years following her death.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Canberrans are so lucky to have the National Gallery of Australia. It’s one of the best galleries you’ll find anywhere, and we have some of the best special exhibitions.
At the moment, that special exhibition is Love & Desire – a collection of many of the world’s most famous Pre-Raphaelite works, visiting Canberra from all over (but mostly from the Tate Britain) for several months. We went to see it on Sunday, (and then we walked along the lake to the National Library for lunch on the terrace – it’s still really warm, considering it is mid-autumn here, as in summer-dress warm).
Something I didn’t learn until yesterday was how much William Morris stuff the gallery here actually owns.
Also, it was great to see some of the most famous Ballet Russes costumes out of storage and on display on the way in (we had the common sense to buy them all up before anybody else in the world realised their value. Now, if you want to see – say – Nijinsky’s most famous costumes, you have to come to Canberra!).
Here are a few of the famous works in the exhibition:
John William Waterhouse The Lady of Shalott 1888
John Everett Millais Ophelia 1851-52
William Holman Hunt The awakening conscience 1853
(This is supposed to be a Victorian mistress waking up to how she shouldn’t be living in sin!)
Ford Madox Brown The last of England 1864-66
(This is MUCH smaller than I always imagined it!)
Dante Gabriel Rossetti Ecce ancilla domini! (The Annunciation) 1849-50
(This one is amazing and before its time, as it depicts the Virgin Mary being told she will give birth to Jesus as a terrifying moment.)
This Victorian illustration was created by Englishwoman Kate Greenaway, and is dated the 26th of March, 1891.
Greenaway, who was born in London in 1846, was an internationally successful creator of children’s books and a painter of many watercolours.
The artist died in London in 1901.
