‘Accurate to the Point of Mania’: Eyewitness Testimony and Memory Making in Australia's Official Paintings of the First World War

Abstract

The collection of official war art housed in the Australian War Memorial has played an important role in shaping a memory of the First World War for almost a century. This article explores the importance of eyewitness testimony in the production of war paintings for the Memorial's collection during the interwar years. Focusing on the repainting of official artist Harold Septimus Power's canvas Saving the Guns of Robecq, it explores the reasons why—in the inevitably contested construction of memory—Charles Bean and John Treloar privileged veterans’ memories over artists’ interpretations of the conflict. It argues that in the process of memory making aesthetics mattered less than portraying the war in a way acceptable to the men who had experienced it.

I would like to thank Alex Torrens of the AWM's Art Section for her untiring assistance with my research of the paintings, and Joan Beaumont, Pat Jalland and Richard White for their invaluable comments on drafts of this article.

I would like to thank Alex Torrens of the AWM's Art Section for her untiring assistance with my research of the paintings, and Joan Beaumont, Pat Jalland and Richard White for their invaluable comments on drafts of this article.

Notes

¹ Scholars of Australia's official war paintings focus on the artists and an analysis of their work. See, for example, Anne Gray, A. Henry Fullwood: War Paintings (Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 1983); Catherine Speck, Painting Ghosts: Australian Women Artists in Wartime (Melbourne: Craftsman House, 2004); and Gavin Fry and Anne Gray, Masterpieces of the Australian War Memorial (Adelaide: Rigby, 1982). Anne-Marie Condé has begun to shift the focus away from the artists to those individuals commissioning the official paintings. See Anne-Marie Condé, ‘John Treloar, Official War Art and the Australian War Memorial’, Australian Journal of Politics and History 53, no. 3 (2007): 451–64.

² The first of these studies to consider the commemoration of the war in a range of cultural forms was Jay Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). There have since been a number of histories published that explore the variety of forms which commemorate the First World War.

³ Laura Brandon, ‘The Canadian War Museum's Art Collection as a Site of Meaning, Memory and Identity in the Twentieth Century’ (PhD thesis, Carleton University, 2002), 24; see also Laura Brandon, Art or Memorial? The Forgotten History of Canada's War Art, illustrated edn (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2006).

⁴ Joan Beaumont, Broken Nation: Australians in the Great War (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2013), xix.

⁵ Will Dyson to the Official Secretary of the Commonwealth of Australia, 23 August 1916, AWM93 18/7/5 Part 1, Australian War Memorial, Canberra (hereafter AWM).

⁶ Bean to Minister of Defence George Pearce, 16 September 1916, AWM93 12/12/1 Part 2; Betty Churcher, The Art of War (Melbourne: Miegunyah Press, 2004), 23.

⁷ Fisher to Prime Minister William Morris Hughes, 31 January 1917, AWM93 12/12/1 Part 2.

⁸ Bean, ‘Australia's Records: Preserved as Sacred Things’, 29 September 1917, AWM93 12/12/1 Part 2; Lieutenant-General William Birdwood to Robert Henry Muirhead Collins, 21 April 1917, AWM93 12/12/1 Part 2.

⁹ Charles Bean, The Australian Records, c.1917, AWM93 12/12/1 Part 1.

¹⁰ Fry and Gray, 9–13.

¹¹ Fry and Gray, 11.

¹² Treloar cited in Michael McKernan, Here Is Their Spirit: A History of the Australian War Memorial 1917–1990 (Brisbane: University of Queensland Press in association with the Australian War Memorial, 1991), 183.

¹³ Winter, 5.

¹⁴ Condé, ‘John Treloar’, 457.

¹⁵ John Frank Williams, The Quarantined Culture: Australian Reactions to Modernism 1913–1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 24.

¹⁶ Bean cited in Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, Report Together with Minutes of Evidence Relating to the Proposed Australian War Memorial, Canberra (Canberra, 1928), 4.

¹⁷ Bean to Edwin and Lucy Bean, 19 January 1919, AWM38 3DRL 7447/7. Emphasis added.

¹⁸ John Treloar, Australian Chivalry: Reproductions in Colour and Duo-Tone of Official War Paintings (Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 1933).

¹⁹ Streeton's Agreement, 3 May 1918, AWM93 18/7/12.

²⁰ Bean to Edwin and Lucy Bean, 19 January 1919, AWM38 3DL 7447/7.

²¹ Minutes of Meeting of AWM Art Committee, May 1917, AWM38 3DRL 6673/286.

²² Dudley McCarthy, Gallipoli to the Somme: The Story of C.E.W. Bean (Sydney: J. Ferguson, 1983), 7.

²³ Charles Bean, ‘The Technique of a Contemporary War Historian’, Historical Studies Australia and New Zealand 2, no. 6 (November 1942); Charles Bean, ‘The Writing of the Australian Official History of the Great War: Sources, Methods and Some Conclusions’, Royal Australian Historical Society 24 (1938): 110.

²⁴ Will Dyson to Edward Dyson, May 1918, Edward Dyson Papers, MS 10617 Box 269, State Library of Victoria.

²⁵ McKernan, 34–49.

²⁶ Anne-Marie Condé, ‘Capturing the Records of War: Collecting at the Mitchell Library and the Australian War Memorial’, Australian Historical Studies 37, no. 125 (April 2005): 142.

²⁷ Parliamentary Standing Committee, Report Together with Minutes, 6.

²⁸ Tanja Luckins, The Gates of Memory: Australian People's Experiences of Memories of Loss and the Great War (Fremantle: Curtin University Books, 2004), 212.

²⁹ Bean, ‘Australia's Records’.

³⁰ Hurley cited in Robert Dixon, ‘Spotting the Fake: C. E. W. Bean, Frank Hurley and the Making of the 1923 Photographic Record of the War’, History of Photography 31, no. 2 (2007): 166; Hurley cited in Martyn Jolly, ‘Australian First World War Photography’, History of Photography 23, no. 2 (Summer 1999): 142.

³¹ Dixon, ‘Spotting the Fake’, 166; Bean cited in History of Photography 23, no. 2 (Summer 1999), 166.

³² Dixon, ‘Spotting the Fake’, 165–6, 175.

³³ Minutes of AWM Art Committee, February 1921–July 1927 and February 1941, AWM170 4/1.

³⁴ Treloar to Bean, 5 May 1921, AWM38 3DRL 6673/314.

³⁵ Treloar to Adams, 6 April 1936, AWM93 18/1/42.

³⁶ Sue Malvern, ‘War, Memory and Museums: Art and Artefact in the Imperial War Museum’, History Workshop Journal 49 (January 2000): 188–9.

³⁷ Treloar to Power, 11 December 1925, AWM93 18/4/40.

³⁸ Janet Watson, Fighting Different Wars: Experience, Memory, and the First World War in Britain (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 200.

³⁹ Jay Winter and Antoine Prost, The Great War in History: Debates and Controversies, 1914 to the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 174.

⁴⁰ Alistair Thomson, ‘Anzac Memories: Putting Popular Memory Theory into Practice in Australia’, Oral History 18, no. 1 (Spring 1990): 25.

⁴¹ Tim Cook, Clio's Warriors: Canadian Historians and the Writing of the World Wars (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2006), 51.

⁴² Easterbrook to Treloar, 26 May 1937, AWM93 18/4/40 Part 3.

⁴³ Letter from Treloar to Bean, 17 April 1918, AWM38 3DRL 6673/323.

⁴⁴ Letters between Treloar and Bean about Wheeler, 1920–29, AWM38 3DRL 6673/323.

⁴⁵ Treloar's notes on Wheeler, 29 December 1919, AWM38 3DRL 6673/323.

⁴⁶ Treloar to Bean, 7 October 1925, AWM38 3DRL 6673/292; George Bell, Australian Engineers Constructing a Bridge at Eterpigny, 1925, oil on canvas, 76.2 x 101.8 cm, ART11416, AWM. This painting had several titles and is also known as The Bridge Builders or Battle Scene, France 1918.

⁴⁷ Septimus Power, The Incident for Which Lieutenant F.H. McNamara Was Awarded the VC, 1924, oil on canvas, 143 x 234.7 cm, ART08007, AWM; Septimus Power, Camel Corps at Magdhaba, 1925, oil on canvas, 178.5 x 268.5 cm, ART09230, AWM.

⁴⁸ Harold Septimus Power, Service Record, B2455, National Archives of Australia, Canberra (hereafter NAA).

⁴⁹ ‘Display of Paintings: Mr. H. Septimus Power's Work’, The Advertiser, 10 July 1928.

⁵⁰ ‘Septimus Power: Famous War-Artist’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 29 April 1922; ‘Picture of the Year, Royal Academy Exhibition: Australian Artists’, The Argus, 28 June 1919.

⁵¹ Treloar to Power, 26 June 1925, AWM93 18/4/40.

⁵² Tasman Heyes to Treloar, 4 November 1925, AWM93 18/4/40.

⁵³ ‘Royal Academy Exhibition’, The Argus, 6 June 1925.

⁵⁴ George Langley to Treloar, 13 July 1925, AWM93 18/4/40.

⁵⁵ Treloar to Power, 20 August 1925, AWM93 18/4/40.

⁵⁶ Power to Treloar, 30 September 1925, AWM93 18/4/40.

⁵⁷ Heyes to Treloar, 4 November 1925, and Power to Treloar, 30 September 1925, AWM93 18/4/40.

⁵⁸ Bean, Diary, 3 September 1917, AWM38 3DRL606/88/1.

⁵⁹ Power and Treloar, 30 September 1925, AWM93 18/4/40.

⁶⁰ Heyes to Treloar, 4 November 1925, and Power and Treloar, 30 September 1925, AWM93 18/4/40.

⁶¹ Treloar to Power, 11 December 1925, AWM93 18/4/40.

⁶² Septimus Power, Saving the Guns at Robecq, 1920, oil on canvas, 152.3 x 244 cm, ART03332, AWM.

⁶³ Treloar to Bean, 24 August 1933, AWM93 18/1/42.

⁶⁴ Charles Bean, ‘Australian War Memorial Pictures Commissioned’, 1919, AWM38 3DRL 6673/286; Treloar to Adams, 4 September 1933, AWM93 18/1/42.

⁶⁵ Saving the Guns at Robecq was displayed in the first exhibition of the AWM in Melbourne, 1922. Charles Bean, Australian War Museum: The Relics and Records of Australia's Effort in the Defence of the Empire, 1914–1918 (Melbourne: AWM, 1922), 27. Treloar, Australian Chivalry.

⁶⁶ Adams George Hill, Service Record, 1914 – 1920, B2455, NAA; letters between Treloar and Adams, 1929, AWM93 12/11/2109; The Army List of the Australian Military Forces (Melbourne: Govt. Printer, 1940), 1003.

⁶⁷ Lieutenant-Colonel G. H. Adams to Charles Bean, 4 August 1933, AWM93 18/1/42. Unfortunately, the sketch has not survived.

⁶⁸ Treloar to Bean, 24 August 1933, and Treloar to Bean, 30 August 1933, AWM93 18/1/42.

⁶⁹ Treloar to Bean, 24 August 1933, and Treloar to Adams, 4 October 1933, AWM93 18/1/42; A. J. Sweeting, ‘Cutlack, Frederic Morley (1886–1967)’, in Australian Dictionary of Biography (Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University), http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/cutlack-frederic-morley-5859 (accessed 25 August 2014); Frederic Cutlack, The Australians: Their Final Campaign, 1918. An Account of the Concluding Operations of the Australian Divisions in France (London: Sampson Low, Marston, 1918).

⁷⁰ Bean to Treloar, 4 September 1933, AWM93 18/1/42.

⁷¹ Treloar to Bean, 7 September 1933, AWM93 18/1/42.

⁷² Treloar to Adams, 4 October 1933, AWM93 18/1/42; extract from 21st Meeting of Finance Committee, 11 December 1933, AWM93 18/4/40.

⁷³ Bean to Treloar, 4 September 1933, AWM93 18/1/42.

⁷⁴ Charles Bean, The Australian Imperial Force in France: During the Main German Offensive 1918, Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918, vol. 5 (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1941), 438–42.

⁷⁵ Bean to Treloar, 4 September 1933, AWM93 18/1/42.

⁷⁶ Treloar to Bean, 7 September 1933, AWM93 18/1/42; Septimus Power, Bringing Up the Guns, oil on canvas, 147.3 x 233.7 cm, 1921, ART03334, AWM.

⁷⁷ Bean to Treloar, 4 September 1933, AWM93 18/1/42.

⁷⁸ Bean to Adams, c.18 August 1933, AWM93 18/1/42.

⁷⁹ Bean to Treloar, 4 September 1933, AWM93 18/1/42.

⁸⁰ Note from Treloar, 2 October 1933, AWM93 18/1/42.

⁸¹ Adams to Bean, 7 October 1933, AWM93 18/1/42.

⁸² Treloar to Adams, 11 October 1933, and Treloar to Heyes, 30 November 1933, AWM93 18/1/42.

⁸³ Treloar to Adams, 18 December 1934, AWM93 18/1/42.

⁸⁴ Adams to Treloar, 3 January 1935, AWM93 18/1/42.

⁸⁵ Adams to Treloar, 8 April 1936, AWM93 18/1/42.

⁸⁶ Treloar to Bean, 13 February 1933, AWM38 3 DRL 6673/314; Treloar to Adams, 2 November 1933, AWM93 18/1/42.

⁸⁷ Treloar to Bean, 7 September 1933, AWM93 18/1/42.

⁸⁸ Extract from 21st Meeting of Finance Committee, 11 December 1933, AWM93 18/4/40.

⁸⁹ Adams to Treloar, 9 May 1936, AWM93 18/1/42.

⁹⁰ Treloar to Peacock, 6 June 1936, AWM93 18/1/42.

⁹¹ Treloar to Adams, 8 July 1936, AWM93 18/1/42; Adams to Treloar, 20 July 1936, AWM93 18/1/42

⁹² Treloar to Power, 3 May 1935, AWM93 18/1/42

⁹³ Treloar to Adams, 5 February 1935, AWM93 18/1/42.

⁹⁴ Adams to Treloar, 8 February 1935, AWM93 18/1/42.

⁹⁵ Adams to Treloar, 8 February 1935, AWM93 18/1/42.

⁹⁶ Adams to Treloar, 8 April 1936, and Treloar to Power, 22 July 1936, AWM93 18/1/42.

⁹⁷ Adams to Treloar, 8 April 1936, AWM93 18/1/42.

⁹⁸ Adams to Treloar, 8 April 1936, AWM93 18/1/42.

⁹⁹ Treloar to Adams, 2 May 1936, AWM93 18/1/42.

¹⁰⁰ Bean, ‘The Technique of a Contemporary War Historian’, 79.

¹⁰¹ Will Longstaff, Menin Gate at Midnight, 1927, oil on canvas, 137 x 270 cm, ART09807, AWM; Anne Gray, exhibition catalogue, ‘Will Longstaff: Art and Remembrance’, November 2001–February 2002, Australian War Memorial.

¹⁰² John Stephens, ‘“The Ghosts of Menin Gate”: Art, Architecture and Commemoration’, Journal of Contemporary History 44, no. 1 (January 2009): 23.

¹⁰³ Guide to the Australian War Memorial (Canberra: Government Printing Office, 1968). The painting was loaned to Museum Victoria briefly in 2001 before returning to storage until 2008 when it was temporarily on display in the AWM's First World War Gallery until 2009: correspondence between author and AWM Art Section, 25 September and 7 October 2014.