John Rutherford Armstrong ARA (1893 – 1973) – British artist who served with the Royal Field artillery in WW1

Poretrait c. 1933

 John Rutherford Armstrong was born on 14th November 1893 in   Hastings, Sussex.  He was the third son of the Rev’d William   Alexander Armstrong and his wife, Emily Mary, née Cripps. 

 Educated at St Paul's School, London (1907–1912), he went on to   read law briefly at St John's College, Oxford, before starting a short   period of studies at the St John's Wood School of Art, London until   the war intervened.

  During his service as an officer in the Royal Field Artillery in   WW1, the period he spent in Salonika fostered a lifelong interest in   the painting and pottery of ancient Greece, a subject that appeared repeatedly in his later work. and his career in painting and design   began after his return and demobilization

Sources:

Photo of Armstrong c. 1933 from https://www.jennaburlingham.com/artists/361-john-armstrong/biography/

Philip Connard, CVO, RA, (1875 - 1958) - British artist who served in the Royal Artillery on the Western Front before becoming an official Royal Naval war artist during the First World War

 With thanks to Ognyan Hristov for finding this artist for us 

Self portrait

 Philip Connard was born in Southport, Lancashire, UK, on 24th March   1875.  He left school to go out to work as a house decorator, enrolling to 1study art at evening classes.  Philip won a scholarship to study at the   Royal College of Art in London.   After a brief period in France, he     returned to London and worked as an illustrator, before taking  up a     teaching post at Lambeth School of Art.

 During the First World War, Philip volunteered and joined the Royal   Field Artillery as a Gunner (Private).  He was posted to France, where he   took part in several actions before being sent home suffering from Shell   Shock.  By then, he had attained the rank of Captain.

 Appointed as an official war artist by the Royal Navy, Philip painted the   surrender of the German ship SMS “Goeben” and “St George's Day:   Bridge of HMS 'Canterbury', on Patrol Work when the Great Naval Raid on Zeebrugge and Ostend Took Place” on 23rd April 1918.

Philip  was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1918 and became a full Academician in 1925. He was Keeper of the Royal Academy school - the principal tutor - from 1945 to 1949 and was a member of the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours. In 1950, Philip was appointed a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order. 

Philip never forgot his roots, founding The Southport Palette Club in 1921 in order to hold annual exhibitions of the work of local artists. He was President of the Club until his death on 8th December 1958  in Twickenham

Anti-aircraft Gun, 1918

St George's Day 1918 - Bridge of HMS Canterbury

Sources:  Wikipedia and

https://www.facebook.com/groups/385353788875799

Wilhelm Thöny (1888–1949) – Austrian artist

 Found by Paul Simadas and posted on the

Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/groups/385353788875799

Wilhelm Thöny was born in 1888 in the Austrian province of Styria and died in New York in 1949. He became a painter, graphic artist, engraver and illustrator. Thöny trained at the State Art School in Graz, and then the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich from 1908 to 1912.

In 1915, Thöny volunteered to join the Graz Rifle Regiment #3. In 1916, now as an army artist, he was commissioned to paint portraits of enemy soldiers for the book "The enemies of Germany and its allies” or “Die Feinde Deutschlands und seiner Verbündeten". He visited prisoner of war camps at Braunau in Bohemia, Kleinmünchen and Mauthausen to paint portrait studies of captured Greek, Italian, Albanian and Romanian soldiers.

In the portrait shown here he has painted a Greek soldier in a martial pose showing a certain empathy for his subject:

Wilhelm Thöny is considered one of the most important Austrian artists of the first half of the 20th century, who, according to the latest findings, can be ranked alongside such famous painters as Oskar Kokoschka, Herbert Boeckl or the artists of the Nötscher Kreis like Anton Kolig, Franz Wiegele.

Sources: post by Paul Simadas and Wikipedia

Jean-Louis Forain (1852 – 1931) – French artist

 

Jean-Louis Forain was a French artist, who specialized in painting, print making, and illustration. He was born in Reims in France on 23rd October 1852 and moved to Paris with his family when he was eight years old. 

During the First World War, Forain's illustrations honoured the patriotism of his contemporaries, and he enlisted in the Section de Camouflage under Lucien-Victor Guirand de Scévola.  He was also a war correspondent. A number of his caricatures published in the popular press at the time became posters and postcards.

Untitled caricature by Jean-Louis Forain

In his later years, Forain created numerous scenes of the Law Courts and other Parisian institutions and social satire caricatures of late 19th and early 20th century French life.

In 1931, shortly before his death on 11th July, Forain was made a member of the Royal Academy of Arts in London. He was one of France's most famous and revered artists during his time. He was, perhaps, most highly respected for his numerous drawings which chronicled and commented on Parisian city life at the end of the 19th century. Followers and admirers of Forain's work included Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

Sources:  Artists of the First World War Facebook Page

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Louis_Forain

Gilbert Spencer RA (1892 - 1979) - British artist who served in Salonika during WW1

Gilbert Spencer (4th August 1892 – 14th January 1979) was a British artist who painted landscapes, portraits, figure compositions and mural decorations working in oils and watercolour. 

He was the younger brother of the artist Stanley Spencer. During the First World War, after somewhat pacifist misgivings on the part of both themselves and their mother, both Stanley and Gilbert served in the Royal Army Medical Corps, initially at the Beaufort War Hospital in Bristol. Gilbert was then drafted to the Macedonian front, serving in Salonika and in the Eastern Mediterranean 1915–19. He returned to his studies at The Slade after the war (1919–20).

(Sir Stanley Spencer, CBE RA (30 June 1891 – 14 December 1959) also served in Salonika during WW1. 

To mark of the launch of the remarkable new Gilbert Spencer Online Catalogue (details below) - Liss Llewellyn is delighted to announce a selling exhibition of some of his finest works.

The Gilbert Spencer Online Catalogue has been directed by Professor Paul Gough, with content by Dr Amy Lim and website design and build by Rich Tarr. It has been generously funded by a grant from the Research and Knowledge Exchange Committee at Arts University Bournemouth.

For further information, please contact Eva@lissllewellyn.com

https://gilbertspencercatalogue.org/

John MacGilchrist (1893 – 1977) – Scottish born American artist

With thanks to Gregory VanWyngarden who discovered this artist and posted the information and image on the Facebook Group Artists of the First World War.

John MacGilchrist was born on 12th July 1893 in Stirling, Scotland  He studied architectural drawing and painted initially mainly Scottish castles. 

In 1913, John travelled to the United States of America to complete his degree in architecture at Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh. 

John MacGilchrist became a prominent American aviation artist and he enlisted and served during World War I as a Balloon Observer for the British Royal Flying Corps. 

Despite having been shot down four times, John survived over 200 hours of balloon observation and chronicled images of the war. He painted watercolor scenes of balloons and aircraft during his service at the front. 

After the war, John returned to the USA to pursue his profession as an architect in Philadelphia and New York. In 1926, however, he left architecture and returned to his romance with planes. His techniques ranged from etchings and lithographs to watercolors and oil paintings. In the 1932 Olympics, John MacGilchrist entered three etchings in the graphics section of the Olympic Art Competitions. 

After falling into obscurity during the Great Depression John's career ended and his work was only re-discovered after his death. 

John MacGilchrist died in May 1977 in Coronado, California, USA.

Here is his 1917 painting of a balloon crew hauling their gasbag down in "A STORM."

Sources:  Wikipedia,

https://www.facebook.com/groups/385353788875799 14th June 2025

Horace Moore-Jones (1868 – 1922) – British born New Zealand artist

With thanks to Paul Simadas for finding Horace.for us and researching the following information:

Horace was born in 1868 in England and later emigrated to Australia and then on to New Zealand. Pre-war he was a notable artist.  When he was 46, Horace enlisted in the New Zealand Expeditionary Forces and served at Gallipoli. He fought as a sapper in the Engineers, where his duties included drawing topographical sketches of the terrain for military use.

When he was wounded, Horace was evacuated to England to recover. There he completed a number of water colour and ink paintings depicting Gallipoli scenes. They were exhibited in London in 1916 to acclaim. 

Horace toured New Zealand with his paintings in 1916-17, in part raising funds for NZ returned servicemen. After the war, he became an art teacher. Horace tragically died in a hotel fire in Hamilton NZ in 1922, a sad loss for his country.

Many of his paintings, some seventy, had previously been sold to the Australian Government. 

‘The unpretentious tent of General Sir Ian Hamilton, Imbros’, watercolour over pencil on paper, Horace Moore-Jones, 1915.

NOTE Sir Ian Hamilton commanded the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force that fought the campaign on the Gallipoli Peninsula. This was his second headquarters’ location and would not be his last. 

The first HQ was aboard the super-Dreadnought battleship HMS Queen Elizabeth. German submarine activity in the Aegean Sea forced the ship’s withdrawal. Its loss would have constituted a serious loss and damage to British prestige in the East.

The scene for this painting is the shore of Lake Kephelos and the coast of the island of Imbros. The immediate area housed the HQ MEF and a number of military units, including the Australian Bakery, and the general insisted on living with his troops and sharing their deprivations. The Royal Naval Air Service maintained an airfield and seaplane anchorage nearby. Two aircraft are visible in the sky. Sir Ian may be the single figure seen standing outside the tent near the hut. Sir Ian often appeared in the pose the figure has adopted. An olive tree stands isolation.    Unfortunately this arrangement attracted enemy attention and attack. The headquarters moved to a more protected location on the hills overlooking the lake.

Imbros was retained as a British outpost after the final withdrawal from Gallipoli in 1916 and it was a British base into 1919 and later.

Credit: The AWM and Gallipoli Association archival research by Paul Simadas.

Sources:Wikipedia and https://www.facebook.com/groups/385353788875799/?hoisted_section_header_type=recently_seen&multi_permalinks=1902327100511786