Lunt Roberts (1894-1981) – British artist

 With thanks to Nick Lock of the Royal Welch Fusiliers Museum for finding this artist for us

Richard John Lunt Roberts was born in Secunderabad, Madras, India, on 28th August 1894. His father, Richard Roberts, was Welsh and he worked as a storekeeper on the Indian Railway. His mother, Gertrude Annie Lunt Roberts, was born in Australia to British parents.

In 1901 the family, including a younger brother and sister, lodged in a farmer's house in Aber, Caernarvonshire, Wales; by 1911 they had moved into a home of their own in Llandudno. 

Lunt Roberts joined the London Sketch Club, of which he later became President, in 1913, between then and 1964 was a cartoonist and illustrator. 

He joined the Royal Welsh Fusiliers during the First World War, initially as a Private.  He was gazetted as a Second Lieutenant into the 6th (Carnarvonshire and Anglesey) Battalion on 24th June 1915 and served in Gallipoli. 

After the War Lunt  worked as an illustrator.  He married Hilda Plant in Lewisham in 1924. and died  in Kingston Upon Thames in 1981.

Gallipoli sketch and "An age of Invention" by Lunt Roberts

Sources:  Find my Past, Free BMD and https://ukcomics.fandom.com/wiki/Lunt_Roberts_(1894-1981)

Christopher David Williams RBA (7 January 1873 – 1934) - Welsh artist

 Mametz Wood, commemorating the Welsh during the Battle of the Somme July 1916 - a painting by Christopher Williams 

About four thousand men from the Welsh Division were killed or wounded in the attack on Mametz Wood that took place in July 1916, during the First Battle of the Somme.  The wood still stands today and there is a Memorial to the 38th Division nearby.   Mametz Wood was a large area, overgrown and well defended by experienced German soldiers.  The first attack on 7th July 1916 failed to reach the wood.   Welsh soldiers, who were expected to make an assault o n German lines, were machine-gunned as they moved across open fields. 

Born in Maesteg, Wales, Christopher's father Evan Williams wanted his son to study medicine and to be a doctor but Christopher had other ides.

Self portrait by
Christopher Williams

For a poem about the Welsh at Mametz Wood by Welsh poet Llewelyn Wyn Gfiffith, who served with the Royal Welsh Fusiliers on the Western Front, please see the Forgotten Poets of the First World War weblog post of 23rd June 2021.  The poem was found for us by Nick Lock of the Royal Welch Fusiliers Museum which is in Caernarfon Castle in Caernarfon, Gwynedd, North Wales.  To find out more and book a visit please visit their website https://www.rwfmuseum.org.uk/index.php

Arthur Jacob Lyons (1873 – 1948) – British artist

Born in Kensington in 1873 – birth registered in fourth quarter -  “The St Ives Times” reports Arthur as staying in the town in July 1914, having arrived from Paris, and described him as a "medalist of the Salon", after receiving a medal for a painting in 1909. He joined the British Red Cross when war broke out, but was later seconded into the Army as an administrator. 

Arthur's painting of a Red Cross nurse in a garden was painted while he was recovering from an illness at Osborne convalescent home during the First World War. He joined the British Red Cross when war broke out, but was later seconded into the Army as an administrator. 

https://vad.redcross.org.uk/Card?fname=Arthur+&sname=Lyons&id=139204&first=true&last=true

https://museumandarchives.redcross.org.uk/objects/10091

Edith Maud Drummond Hay R.R.C. 2nd Class 3.6.19 (1872 – 1960) – artist and WW1 volunteer

Edith Maud Drummond Hay was born on 28th February 1872 in Kinfauns in Perthshire, Scotland. Her parents were Henry Maurice Drummond Hay, a Colonel in the Army who was a Scottish naturalist and ornithologist, and his wife, Charlotte Elizabeth Richardson Hay.  On their marriage, Henry took the family name of Hay, adding it to his own surname.   Edith was one of four sisters - the others being Constance, Alice and Lucy - and the girls had two brothers - Henry Maurice Drummond Hay, James Adam Gordon Richardson Drummond Hay.  

When Peter Drummond-Hay and his family moved into his great aunt’s house in the Perthshire village of Glencarse back in the 1980s, he uncovered a treasure trove of wartime memories.

Edith was affectionately known in the family as ‘Aunt Tuck’. She left a fascinating legacy - a collection of illustrated diaries, including an album of her experiences as a volunteer with the British Red Cross Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) during the First World War, when she joined the Perth/38 Detachment.  According to her Red Cross Record Card, Edith served in several hospitals, including some in France, and she was awarded the Royal Red Cross, Second Class in June 1919 for her war work.   Edith never married and died on 20th February 1960.   The Grant of Probate for Edith mentions the name David Charles Scott-Moncrieff, which makes me wonder if there is a link to the WW1 poet Charles Kenneth Scott-Moncrieff (1889 – 1930).

The family donated Edith’s WW1 album to the Red Cross in London, where it is at the Red Cross Museum.  The British Red Cross’s 2020 Calendar features some of Edith’s WW1 paintings.

"Embarking at Folkestone" by Edith Maud Drummond Hay

Sources:  British Red Cross 2020 Calendar, Find my Past

https://vad.redcross.org.uk/Card?sname=Hay&id=64335

https://vad.redcross.org.uk/Card?sname=Hay&page=2&id=100475

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/local-news/perthshire-family-discover-aunt-tucks-8335249

https://www.geni.com/people/Colonel-HM-Drummond-Hay/6000000015351769856

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Drummond-Hay

Photograph of Edith from https://museumandarchives.redcross.org.uk/objects/8828

Henry Spencer Moore OM CH FBA (1898 –1986) was a British artist and sculptor

I appreciate that Henry Moore is not less well  known but what is perhaps not known is that he served during the First World War

Born on 30 July 1898 in Castleford, West Riding of Yorkshire, UK, Henry’s parents were Raymond Spencer Moore and his wife, Mary, née Baker.). His father was Irish and became pit deputy and then under-manager of the Wheldale colliery in Castleford.  Educated locally and encouraged by his parents to study, Henry began modelling in clay and carving in wood at an early age. He decided to become a sculptor when he was eleven years old, after hearing about Michelangelo's work in Sunday School.

Henry volunteered to serve in the Army during the First World War but was initially turned down by the Artists' Rifles regiment (the obvious choice) because he was considered too short. However, but eventually he was accepted by the Civil Service Rifles – he was the youngest man to serve in that Regiment - and assigned to the 3rd Battalion. Posted to the Western Front, Henry and was wounded during a gas attack that took place on 30th November 1917 in Bourlon Wood, during the Battle of Cambrai.  He was sent back to Britain and spent two months in hospital, before becoming recovered after hospital treatment and became a physical training instructor.  

“It was in those two years of war that I broke finally away from parental domination which had been very strong. My old friend, Miss Gostick, found out about ex-servicemen's grants. With her help I applied and received one for the Leeds School of Art. This was understood from the outset merely to be a first step. London was the goal. But the only way to get to London was to take the Board of Education examinations and to win a scholarship.”

Henry Moore in James Johnson Sweeney, 'Henry Moore', Partisan Review, New York, March-April 1947, p. 182

After an illustrious career, Henry died on 1st August 1986

Find out more here: 

https://www.henry-moore.org/about-henry-moore/biography/childhood-and-education

Albert Reich (1889-1942) - a German official war artist from Bavaria

 

One of the members of my Artists of the First World War Facebook Group is Ognyan Hristov from Bulgaria., who posted this about Albert Reich:  Albert Reich was a star artist during the First World War.  He served with German alpine troops, travelling to Norway, Russia, Italy, Bosnia. Serbia.  His work from the Macedonian Front is most interesting.

Born in Neumarkt 1889 Albert became an illustrator for the German children’s  magazine: “Kriegsblatter fur die deutsche Jugend“ (Tr. War magazine for German Youth), a magazine that published patriotic stories for children. 

Albert served during the First World War in the German Alpine Corps and travelled to Norway, Italy, Russia and the Balkans. Travelling from Bosnia, through Serbia to Macedonia, he documented what he saw in graphics and watercolors.  Albert wrote and published a book about his experiences: “Mit Meinem Corps durch Serbien", 1916” from which these images are taken. Albert died in Munich in 1942.

Sources:  information from Ognyan Hristov and

https://www.thirdreicharts.com/ss-trommler-albert-reich-1881-1942

Stephen Cribari – a poet who teaches law in America - observations on Lesser-known Artists of the First World War

Stephen J Cribari’s poetry and plays have found their way into print and onto the theatrical and operatic stage in the United States and abroad.  In a parallel life he was a criminal defense attorney and law professor.  His coursework and commentary has ranged from evidence and criminal procedure to cultural property and the protection of art, artifacts, and cultural heritage.  He resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  His verse-novella "Still Life" is published by Lothrop Street Press.

As with little-known poets from WWI, what's our defining standard?  Little- known because died too young?  Little-known as an artist but happened to paint during, or in, the war? Well-known as an artist but painted only a little of the war?

Maybe it's the lawyer in me, or the sometime academic, but I think articulating a standard is important, not because it serves to include or exclude, but because it would spur us on to think about art, and to think about how we think about art.  And I think that's important because it gets us to think about ourselves.

Otto Dix (1891 - 1969)
Self Portrait

WWI art comprised a significant portion of one of my law courses.  Researching and preparing that material, I'd say that Dix, Beckman, Kirchner and Marc were major artists and seriously well-known war artists.  Check out some recent exhibitions at the Neue Gallery in New York City, devoted to Century German and Austrian art: https://www.neuegalerie.org/exhibitions/40

Similarly, Stanley Spencer, Isaac Rosenberg, Orpen, Nevinson, Nash might be considered well-known artists who painted the war, or well-known war artists.  Along with David Bombrerg, Nevinson and Nash might also be considered well-known artists generally.  Alfred Munnings is a seriously well-known artist, to whom the National Army Museum devoted an entire show just a few years ago.

Picasso and Rouault painted a bit of the war, and Renoir painted during the war but not of the war.  They would be considered well-known artists but at best lesser-known war artists.  Just as Yeats, despite his death of an airman poems, is not considered a WWI poet at all as he overtly refused to write poems about the war.

A postcard sent by Picasso to the
French poet Apollinaire in WW1

In the catalogues from the National Portrait Gallery's "The Great War in Portraits" and the Tate's "Aftermath: Art in the Wake of World War One" are many obscure, little-known artists but they might be considered well-known WWI artists.  And then there's someone like Victor Tardieu who painted the Duchess of Sutherland's field hospital and who, after the war, became a guiding light in Vietnamese painting.  A little-known war artist (no one would have known of his paintings until the Duchess's heirs sold them) who became a famous artist in southeast Asia but remained little known elsewhere!

Stephen Cribari