Federico Quarenghi or Federigo Quarenghi (1858 - 1940) - Italian artist

"Letter Home" - Alpine soldiers writing letter

Federico Quarenghi or Federigo Quarenghi was born in Milan, Italy on 24th Novcmber1858.

Federico studied at the Brera Academy under Giuseppe Bertini. His style was influenced by Tranquillo Cremona, and was mainly known for his elegant portraits. He exhibited commonly at the Brera, and among his paintings are portraits of Giacobbe Colombo and of the painter Attilio Pusterla.

He died in 1940.

Jennie Margaret Edwards - artist

Portrait of Florence Thorneycroft - Commandant of the Staffordshire Voluntary Aid Detachment during the First World War, wearing a Red Cross nurse's uniform - painted by Jennie Margaret Edwards. 

The painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1917.  I am hoping to find further information about the artist.   With thanks to Historian Debbie Cameron for finding this painting.

Adrian Keith Graham Hill (1895 – 1977) - British Artist

Adrian Keith Graham Hill was born in Charlton, London on 24 March 1895.  His parents were Graham and Emma Matilda Hill.  He was educated at Dulwich College and went on to study at the St John's Wood Art School between 1912 and 1914.

When war broke out, Adrian enlisted with the Honourable Artillery Company. Because of his artistic abilities, he was assigned to a Scouting and Sniping Section, whose work often involved operating in front of the Allied trenches to sketch enemy emplacements.   Later in life, he described a typical patrol into no man's land:

"I advanced in short rushes, mostly on my hands and knees with my sketching kit dangling round my neck. As I slowly approached, the wood gradually took a more definite shape, and as I crept nearer I saw that what was hidden from our own line, now revealed itself as a cunningly contrived observation post in one of the battered trees."

Adrian was the first artist to be commissioned by the newly-created Imperial War Museum to record scenes on the Western Front.  Between 1917 and 1919 he made 180 pen-and-ink drawings showing the examples of the devastation in France and Belgium and the work of troops of different nationalities in the trenches.

"Behind Gavrelle" Adrian Hill

After his First World War service, Adrian studied at the Royal College of Art before working as an artist.  In 1938, while convalescing from tuberculosis at the King Edward VII Sanatorium in Midhurst, he passed the time by drawing nearby objects from his hospital bed.  Adrian found that helped his recovery. In 1939, occupational therapy was introduced to the sanatorium for the first time and Ardian was invited to teach drawing and painting to other patients - at first to injured soldiers returning from the war, and then to general civilian patients.  He found that the practice of Art seemed to help to divert the patients and to relieve their mental distress.

Adrian noticed that art appreciation also aided recovery from illness and he became involved with the British Red Cross Society, setting up a scheme whereby reproductions of famous artists' works were lent to hospital wards all over the country. Speakers were also booked to talk to patients about their artworks. By 1950 this picture-lending scheme had spread to nearly 200 hospitals, and there was a waiting list.

The artist Edward Adamson joined the program in 1946 as it was extended to the long-stay mental asylums, and started classes at Netherne Hospital in Surrey.  Adrian apparently coined the term "art therapy" in 1942 and in 1945, he published his ideas in a book entitled "Art Versus Illness".

Eugène Galien-Laloue (1854–1941) - Official French WW1 artist

Eugène Galien-Laloue was a French artist, born in Paris on 11th December 1854.

The Republic of France selected Galien-Laloue to work as a war artist during the Franco-Prussian War and the First World War, chiefly in watercolor but I haven't been able to find any examples of his WW1 paintings.

Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson (1889 – 1946) - artist

Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson (1889 – 1946) was the son of the War Correspondent Henry Nevinson.

On the outbreak of the First World War, as he was a pacifist, Christopher refused to become involved in combat duties, and volunteered instead to work for the Red Cross. Posted to the Western Front in November 1914, he worked as a driver, stretcher-bearer and hospital orderly. Christopher returned home in January 1915.

The following month he wrote in “The Daily Express” newspaper: "All artists should go to the front to strengthen their art by a worship of physical and moral courage and a fearless desire of adventure, risk and daring and free themselves from the canker of professors, archaeologists, cicerones, antiquaries and beauty worshippers."

Christopher then joined the Royal Army Medical Corps. On 1st November 1915, he married Kathleen Knowlman at Hampstead Town Hall.  His Mother, Margaret Nevinson later recalled: "My son informed me, suddenly, one evening that, though not engaged, he meant to get married before he was killed." Instead of being sent to France he helped nurse soldiers being treated at the Third General Hospital in London. After contacting rheumatic fever in January, 1916, he was invalided out of the army.

Painting "La Mitrailleuse" by Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson in 1915

Nina Hamnett (1890 – 1956) Welsh artist and writer

Nina Hamnett was born in Shirley House, Picton Road in the coastal town of Tenby, Pembrokeshire, Wales on 14th February 1890. Her father George Hamnett was an army officer, born in Chennai (formerly Madras), India. Her mother Mary was born in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador.

Nina was sent to a private boarding school at Westgate-on-Sea before moving on to the Royal School for Daughters of Officers of the Army in Bath, Somerset from 1902 to 1905.

Her father was dishonourable discharged from the army and worked as a taxi driver. From 1906 to 1907 Nina studied at the Pelham Art School and then at the London School of Art until 1910.  In 1914 she went to Montparnasse, Paris, France to study at Marie Vassilieff's Academy.

Nina went on to become an accomplished artist and writer, and an expert on sailors' shantys. She became known as the "Queen of Bohemia" for her eccentric behaviour. She was a regular contributor to “The Coterie” Magazine.

Hamnett died on 16th December 1956.

Paintings:

Nina Hamnett painted by Roger Fry (1866 - 1934) in 1917, was wearing a dress designed by Vanessa Bell and made at the Omega Workshops

WW1 painting by Nina Hamnett - Portrait of Major General William Bethune Lindsay by Nina Hamnett - Canadian War Museum

Sources: http://zone47.com/crotos/?p=8&p195=1032442  and Wikipedia

Book Review: "Images of the Great War" by Lawrence Dunn, published by Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd., London, 2015

Lawrence Dunn, an artist from Sunderland, guides us through a brief history of the First World War featuring a selection of images by some of the British and Empire artists, cartoonists, poets, photographers and sculptors of the time -  paintings, drawings, illustrations and photographs, some of which are from the author's own collection. 

With the skill that only an artist has, Lawrence encourages us to have a closer look at some of those works and in so doing brings the conflict to life as never before. In many instances, Lawrence also invites the reader to compare the styles of artists who have painted the same view or person. 

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book.  I already knew some of the names that Lawrence has included but there were many that were new to me.  I was interested to see that Lawrence has dedicated the book to his second cousin, Corporal Michael Davison of the Northumberland Fusiliers (1st Tyneside Irish).  Michael was an underground putter at Ryhope Colliery when he enlisted in 1914 and was killed on the first day of the Battle of Arras - Easter Monday, 9th April 1917.  My great-uncle James Yule was a Private in the Northumberland Fusiliers, 23rd (Tyneside Scottish) Battalion and he too was killed in that Battle on 9th April 1917, as were the British poets R.E. Vernède and Edward Thomas, Walter Lightowler Wilkinson and Canadian poet William Maunsell Scanland  MC, MM.

Beginning with Lady Elizabeth Butler, both male and female WW1 artists of all disciplines are represented in the book - Sir David Muirhead Bone, Francis Edgar Dodd, Sir William Orpen, Charles Sergeant Jagger, Christopher R.W. Nevinson, Paul and John Nash, Bruce Bairnsfather, Arthur Leonard Smith, Wyndham Lewis, David Bomberg, William Patrick Roberts, Colin Unwin Gill, Harold Sandys Williamson, Augustus Edwin John, John Singer Sargent, Henry Tonks, James Francis Hurley OBE, Olive Edis, Eric Henri Kennington, George Clausen, Sir John Lavery, Austin Osman Spare, Gilbert Rogers MBE, Adrian Keith Graham Hill, Sir Jacob Epstein, Mark Gertler, Joyce Dennys, Olive Mudie-Cooke, Flora Lion, Anna Airy, Lucy Kemp-Welch, Norah Neilson-Gray, Clare Atwood, Dorothy Josephine Coke, Frederick Horseman Varley, Stanley Spencer, David Michael Jones, Robert Douglas Strachan.

But this book is not just about the artists and the pictures of WW1, Lawrence goes into detail about some of the battles and includes personal stories about the artists and the areas and subjects depicted.   On page 137 you will find paintings by the artist William Patrick Roberts, who was at the Battle of Arras on 9th April 1917 and is therefore of special interest to me.

Lawrence has also included poems by both male and female poets - Laurence Binyon, Rupert Brooke, Beatrix Brice Miller, Jessie Pope, John McCrae, Lucy Foster Whitmell, Charles Sorley, Alan Seeger, Vera Brittain, Thomas Kettle, Lady Margaret Sackville, Isaac Rosenberg, Siegfried Sassoon, Francis Ledwidge, Wilfred Owen, Robert Graves, Iris Tree, Winifred Mabel Letts, May Wedderburn Cannan, Anna Gordon Keown, Alice Meynell, Katharine Tynan, Elinor Jenkins, Muriel Elsie Graham, Edmund Blunden, May Hershel-Clarke, Mary H.J. Henderson, Eileen Newton, Emily Orr, Dorothy Una Ratcliffe and Edward Thomas.

I also very much enjoyed reading about the photographs taken during the First World War in the section about James Francis Hurley OBE, a photographer from Sydney, Australia.   Lawrence explains that many of the photographs taken during the 1914 - 1919 period were not fake but 'composites', as photographers were still experimenting with the medium and developing the films was a lengthy and complex procedure back then.

With a map of the Western Front showing some of the worst battles of the war, a comprehensive Index and Bibliography and a final poem written by the UK's current Poet Laureate, Dame Carol Ann Duffy, this is a superb book which I would highly recommend.

Lucy London