Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Claus Bergen
Much as once a week I like to take time off to cover warships (Wednesdays), on Sundays (when I feel like working), I like to cover military art and the painters, illustrators, sculptors, and the like that produced them.
Combat Gallery Sunday: The Martial Art of Claus Bergen
Born 18 April 1885 in Stuttgart, Claus Friedrich Bergen was a product of Kaiserian Imperial Germany. Studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, under the American-born master Carl von Marr, young Claus shone.
By his 22nd birthday had been selected to illustrate Karl May’s classic Teutonic fiction novels about Winnetou, the wise chief of the Apaches, and Old Shatterhand, Winnetou’s white blood brother in the American Old West, and Kara Ben Nemsi and his manservant Hadschi Halef Omar in the Sahara and Far East.
As May’s works were sold in upwards of 200 million copies, the more than 400 illustrations that Bergen did between 1907-14 for these books have been seen worldwide.
When the war came, Bergen was appointed as a naval artist to the Kaiserliche Marine and, in the weeks and months following the pivotal Battle of Jutland, created some of his best work.
High Seas Fleet setting sail 31 May 1916
German battleships passing Heligoland
SMS-Grosse-Kurfurst-
Night action
Schlacht vor dem Skagerrak, deutsche Schlachtschiffe und Torpedoboote in Aktion German battleships and torpedo boats in action during the Battle of Jutland , May 31, 1916 by Claus Bergen
SMS- Thuringen and HMS Black Prince
Bridge of SMS Markgraf
Night action
Hipper leaving the crippled Lutzow for SMS Moltke at Jutland, by Carl Becker
Inside a battleship main turret
German destroyers attack the British battleship line at Jutland 31 May
High Seas Fleet setting sail 31 May 1916
SMS-Grosse-Kurfurst-
German battleships passing Heligoland
In 1917, Bergen embarked on tiny SM U-53, a 213-foot Type 51 unterseeboot commanded by legendary Fregattenkapitän Hans Rose, who won both the Pour le Mérite and the Ritterkreuz for sending a staggering 79 Allied ships to the bottom of the Atlantic (including six while bobbing off the Nantucket Lightship in 1916) and went to sea on a two-month war cruise. The images he saw in the heavy seas were burned into his memory, and he committed them to canvas for posterity.
In den Wellenbergen
During WWII, Bergen, then in his 50s, was a party member and one of the Reich’s favored painters. He continued working, composing military subjects on the list of those approved by Berlin.
Battleship Schlesig-Holstein on 1st September 1939 fires the first naval shots of the War at Danzig
1942 U-boot Type IX
Prinz Eugen at Denmark Strait Painting by Claus Bergen
Dornier Flugboot X
After the war, he escaped his Nazi party associations and, living in West Germany at 8172 Lenggries/OBB, painted simple sea scenes and landscapes…
Mit Wind und Wellen
Though he did paint the cover of the 1950s board game Bismarck, one of the most popular in the U.S. at the time.
He donated several large pieces to U.S. and British public museums and the Admiralty after the Second World War, many of which are on display around the UK. He is also celebrated, of course, by the Karl May Society and others. The Hellmann Art Gallery in Munich contains a large body of his more famous works.
Dr. Bergen was impressed with President John F. Kennedy’s 1963 visit to Germany (Ich bin ein Berliner) and wanted to present him with one of his paintings because of the President’s love of the sea and maritime art. His gift, The Atlantic, shows the windswept Atlantic at twilight and hung in the Atlantic Room of the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum for years, making Bergen possibly the only artist to have presented canvas to Kaiser Wilhelm, Hitler and JFK.
Bergen died on 4 October 1964 in Lenggries, Bavaria at age 79.
For more Bergen pieces on Jutland, see British Battle’s excellent series of articles on the clash.
Thank you for your work, sir.
Combat Gallery Sunday: The Martial Art of Augusto Ferrer-Dalmau
Much as once a week I like to take time off to cover warships (Wednesdays), on Sundays (when I feel like working), I like to cover military art and the painters, illustrators, sculptors, and the like that produced them.
Combat Gallery Sunday: The Martial Art of Augusto Ferrer-Dalmau
Born in Barcelona in 1964, Augusto Ferrer-Dalmau Nieto is a hyper-realist painter whose work is haunting. Completing his national service with the Spanish Army in 1984, he has been a painter to the Spanish Ministry of Defense in recent years as well as a well-known military illustrator.
U Boot, by Augusto Ferrer Dalmau u-boat
Trooper, Alcantara Chasseurs Regiment, 14th Cavalry, 1921
Spanish Royal Guard Tiradores de la Guardia Real, 1838 by Augusto Ferrer-Dalmau
LTC. Fernando Primo De Rivera, commanding officer of Alcantara Cavalry Regiment in the summer of 1921
Don Quijote de la Mancha in his uniform carlista y Sancho Panza Augusto Ferrer-Dalmau
Don Quijote de la Mancha coracero y Sancho Panza
Cazador a caballo de la Guardia Imperial Chasseur à cheval de la Garde Impériale Augusto Ferrer-Dalmau
Bourbon Regiment, 5th Line Cavalry, Army of the Center. In Cuenca, at the end of December 1808, during the Peninsular War.
Agustina de Aragon, by Augusto Ferrer Dalmau
Rocroi, the last Tercio, 1643 – Augusto Ferrer-Dalmau
In addition to his historical works, he has gone downrange and sketched modern military conflict in Afghanistan.
The Spanish government has awarded him La Orden del Mérito Civil for his work.
An excellent interview with the artist via the Fundación Universitaria San Pablo CEU Instituto de Estudios Históricos:
He maintains an extensive sample of his art online at his Facebook page which is worth following as is his blog as is his website.
Thank you for your work, sir.
Combat Gallery Sunday: The Martial Art of Albert Brenet
Much as once a week I like to take time off to cover warships (Wednesdays), on Sundays (when I feel like working), I like to cover military art and the painters, illustrators, sculptors, and the like that produced them.
Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Albert Brenet
Born June 25, 1903 at Harfleur, a small coastal town on the Normandy Coast, Albert Victor Eugene Brenet was almost delivered into saltwater. As a youth, he sketched the fishing boats and coastal craft that frequented his city and by 1920 at age 17 had earned a place at the École des beaux-arts in Paris.
However, the young rake soon left school and arranged passage on the leaky old three-masted barque Bonchamps, one of the last French sailing ships in commercial service, and spent several months aboard her on the Australian run with an extended stay in the French West Indies.
Bonchamp, as she looked in 1902
This undoubtedly influenced his paintings even more. More travel was offered him when he ventured to equatorial Africa with a prize funds from awarded by the Salon des Artistes Français.
By the late 1920s he was a regular with the magazine L’Illustration and soon took to other commercial work than included much travel advertising for Air France, Imperial Airways and Air Algeria in the 1930s.
1935.
By 1936 he was named an official illustrator of the French Department of Marine and in that line painted French warships, sailors, aircraft and Marines.
Le Bouvet aux Dardanelles
Le Bougainville arrivant à Tahiti
Early French predreadnought battleships Amiral Duperré, in the center is the Redoutable and to the right is the Formidable
Bréguet 521 Bizerte en panne va être remorqué par torpilleur
Caught in London in June 1940 on business, he was effectively exiled from France for the war but contributed to the war effort through illustration.
SPITFIRE XIV au décollage
Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of Dunkirk
Hydravion survolant un convoi maritime
charge of the spahis la bataille de La Horgne le 15 mai 1940
CHANCE VOUGHT V.156 à l’attaque
Avro Lancaster
In 1946 he was awarded the Legion of Honor for his service to the country and was made an official artist to all three service branches.
French military gendarmes. Note the breech cover on the MAS rifle
French Marins commandos, 1960s, note MAT-49 subguns
He continued his work, specializing in Gouache board, and moved into illustrations for books (illustrating a release of Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days, in 1976), models, and continued his duties to the Republic, venturing out on the carrier Foch as late as the 1991.
SS France at Saint-Nazaire, 1961
Super Etendard launching, 1991, Foch
Mural for the 8th Cavalry regiment, 1993
He died in 2003.
A number of his works are at the Musee National de la Marine at Toulon, the Musée portuaire de Dunkerque, the Gallimard National Maritime Museum, and elsewhere and are available on the Portail des collections des musées de France (for example here) and there are numerous online galleries that host his images.
Thank you for your work, sir.
Combat Gallery Sunday: The Martial Art of Manuel García García
Much as once a week I like to take time off to cover warships (Wednesdays), on Sunday, I like to cover military art and the painters, illustrators, sculptors, and the like that produced them.
Combat Gallery Sunday: The Martial Art of Manuel García García
Spanish maritime artist Manuel García García specializes in taking period black and white photographs and plans of ships that have long-since sailed their last and transforming them into fully-fleshed out paintings.
Barcelona-based Garcia specializes in ships of the Spanish Navy and several of his superb watercolors have been turned into postage stamps both in Spain and abroad.
August 7, 1889, at Dock No. 1 Arsenal Cádiz, where the submarine Peral appears there with 6 crew members. She was actually the world’s first modern electric-powered torpedo armed military submersible and is currently preserved at the Naval Museum of Cartagena.
Knox-class FRAGATA CATALUNA F 73 by Manuel García García. Commissioned in 1975, she was sunk as a target in 2007.
This 9500-ton light cruiser was the head of her class, served on the Nationalist side in the Civil War and was present in most of the major battles. She was one of the last unaltered WWII-era all-gun cruisers in NATO service when she was stricken 31 August 1965.
Archives of his work are available here, and please take the time to visit his website and blog (Spanish) here.
Thank you for your work, sir.
Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Mel Crair
Much as once a week I like to take time off to cover warships (Wednesdays), on Sunday, I like to cover military art and the painters, illustrators, sculptors, and the like that produced them.
Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Mel Crair
Melvin “Mel” Crair was born in Brooklyn on August 17, 1923 to Russian emigrants. Graduating from LaGuardia High School of Music & Art as a budding artist, instead he was drafted into the Army as there was a war on. Serving overseas and seeing hot action, he continued his art education via the GI Bill after the war and joined the ranks of Bruce Minney, Norm Eastman, Gil Cohen, Norman Saunders, Basil Gogos, and Vic Prezio in creating covers and story illustrations for men’s adventure magazines such as Big Western, Man’s, Blue Book and others.
Man’s 1968 March
MEL CRAIR (American, 20th Century). Men’s adventure magazine illustration
Bluebook
Man’s Magazine – 1964 10 Oct
Man’s 1966 March
The Submarine that sank twice!
Man’s cover
He also did paperback cover art for Pyramid, Berkeley, Pocketbooks, Signet, Bantam, and Dell Paperbacks as well as a series of portraits for the same.
Rommel portrait for cover of Fighting Generals by Phil Hirsch 1960
Original Mel Crair portrait, front cover of the Newsweek May 2, 1960, for which it was painted
Colditz
1878 — A novel of the Bannock Indian Wars
He continued working right up until his death at age 83 in 2007.
Archives of his work are available at the American Art Archives, Pulp Covers and Pulp Artists.
Thank you for your work, sir.
Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Herbert Knotel
Much as once a week I like to take time off to cover warships (Wednesdays), on Sunday, I like to cover military art and the painters, illustrators, sculptors, and the like that produced them.
Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Herbert Knotel
Born in 1893 in Berlin, then the capital of old Hohenzollern Prussia and that of Imperial Germany as a whole, Herbert Knotel was the son of renowned uniformologist and military historian Richard Knötel (1857-1914). The elder Knotel pioneered uniform art and in many cases drew from preserved examples whenever possible.
His father’s uniform books are classics that endures to this day as is his massive 1,000-plate Große Uniformkunde, which young Herbert assisted with.
Herbert found himself as a officer in the Prussian Army and, assigned to Hindenburg’s 1st Army was wounded at Tannenburg during WWI. He finished the war as a Hauptmann in a horse cavalry unit on the Eastern Front.
With the world turned upside down in 1919, he returned to Berlin and took up the family business, both expanding and preserving his father’s inherited work and producing original plates of his own while helping run the Berlin Zeughaus Museum.
He was meticulous, first sketching his art, then using watercolors for shading and fill work and finishing with acrylics.
Lancer of Berg by R. Knötel for reference (From the Library of Tony Broughton)
When the Soviets occupied Berlin in 1945, Knotel was commissioned to cover the uniforms of that force in an epic 50-plate set, drawing many from officers and enlisted he met from Zhukov’s Red Army. These were later combined with over 100 images of the Tsarist army uniforms to create a single volume.
“The woman, seen on theatricals event in January 1946, probably frontline Artist”
“The commander of the Special Operations Group, who selected the watch for me and my wife”
“The captain of the Polish infantry unit as a part of the Soviet Army – 1945”
(Dig the swim gear on the pioneer)
Knotel died in 1963.
A huge cross-section of his work, including the Soviet set, is maintained online at the Anne S.K.Brown collection.
The modern tome that best covers his (non-Soviet) work is Herbert Knotel’s German Armies in Color: As Illustrated in His Watercolors & Sketches by Andrew Woelflein and Napoleonic uniforms by Col. John Robert Elting.
Thank you for your work, sir.
Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Bruce Minney
Much as once a week I like to take time off to cover warships (Wednesdays), on Sunday, I like to cover military art and the painters, illustrators, sculptors, and the like that produced them.
Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Bruce Minney
West Coast artist Bruce Minney was born October 2, 1928 and in 1946 was accepted to the prestigious California School of Arts and Crafts. However, after graduation work as a firefighter left him unfulfilled artistically so in 1955 he packed up the family and moved to the mecca of advertising, paperback and pulp publishing production– New York City.
Soon he began producing cover and illustration art for a number of men’s magazines ranging from Stag, For Men Only, Male, True Action, Man’s World, New Man and later National Lampoon while also churning out a staggering 400 paperback covers over the next 30 years.
His populist hyperrealist style, while similar to that of Mort Knustler and others, is unique although sadly some of Minney’s work has actually become kinda synonymous with 1960s kitschy kink— but in the end has been embraced and preserved, so put that in your politically correct pipe and smoke it!
Voyage to the Forgotten World, Mens magazine cover
Stag cover, June 1959
Cover for “Voyage to Somewhere” 1970 paperback
Last Man on Luzon
The Boston Medic Who Wrecked Germany’s Slave Colony – For Men Only, May 1961
Homestead steel strike STAG-Dec-1965
MALE – 1960
The Wild Raid Of Gibbon’s Lace Panty Commandos, Mans Book cover
Tonight We Hit The Nazis’ Torture Train 3695, New Man cover
Vile Secrets Of Hitler’s Hideous Torture Rites
The winner of numerous awards and the shaper of men and boys for a generation or better, he died on August 5, 2013.
Extensive collections of his work are online at Mens Pulp Mags and Pulp Covers while (Bruce’s son-in-law) Thomas Ziegler’s Bruce Minney: The Man Who Painted Everything book is about the best source of information there is on the man and his works.
Thank you for your work, sir.
Combat Gallery Sunday: The Martial Art of Robert McCall
Much as once a week I like to take time off to cover warships (Wednesdays), on Sunday, I like to cover military art and the painters, illustrators, sculptors, and the like that produced them.
Combat Gallery Sunday: The Martial Art of Robert McCall
Born Robert Theodore McCall on the day before Christmas Eve, 1919 in Columbus, he earned a scholarship to the Columbus Fine Art School but during WWII did his part in the Army Air Corps, seeing the bombers and fighters of the era up close and personal.
After the war he worked as an advertising illustrator in Chicago and then New York getting by, doing pieces for everything from pulp stories to concrete adverts.
LET IT RAIN! YOU ALWAYS FEEL SO SAFE AND STEADY DRIVING ON NEW-TYPE CONCRETE! Portland Cement Association, 1960
But McCall had a passion and real eye for aviation work, over time donating some 45 paintings to his old service branch, by then the modern U.S. Air Force.
B-24s over Ploesti, Romania, August 1943, ca.1955
By the 1960s he was working for LIFE and others chronicling the space race, then Stanley Kubrick used his work in what is perhaps the best known near-future sci-fi film of all time.
This painting by artist Robert McCall, “Orion Leaving Space Station,” shows a space vehicle darting from the lit bay of a wheel-shaped space station. It was used in a promotional poster for Stanley Kubrik’s 1968 sci-fi classic, “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Credit: Robert McCall/MGM via NASA
This led to direct work for the National Air and Space Museum and NASA, who contracted him for a series of inspring murals located not only in Washington but at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston; the Dryden Flight Research Center in Lancaster, California, and the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center in Hutchinson.
Robert McCall’s 2003 “Celebrating One Hundred Years of Powered Flight” mural graces the entrance of NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center’s main building. In it, the famed aerospace artist painted a timeline beginning with the dawn of powered flight, and topped it off with flight’s progress into space. 2003 NASA Photo / Tony Landis
Robert McCall’s 1997 mural “Accepting the Challenge of Flight” at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, CA, is focused on portraits of actual Dryden employees. Flight research aircraft of that era fly above, and his ever-optimistic view of the final frontier is in view at the top. 1997 NASA Photo / Tony Landis
Title: “Celebrating One Hundred Years of Powered Flight 1903-2003” Artist: Dr. Robert T. McCall 2003 Medium: oil on canvas Dimensions: 6 feet by 18 feet Commissioned by: NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, CA June 5, 2003 NASA Photo / Tony Landis
Handshake in Space 1974. Image via NASA
Shuttles, Stations, and Spacewalkers, 1979. Image via NASA
Aeronautics Icons. This McCall mural at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif., showcases a host of experimental aircraft. The large silver craft in the foreground is the HL-10 lifting body, which was used for research which paved the way for the shuttle program. The black X-15 rocket plane streaking to the left at the top center of the mural flew 199 missions from 1959 to 1968, setting speed and altitude records for winged aircraft. Image via NASA
McCall’s work, “The Space Mural — A Cosmic View,” can be seen at the National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. It is SIX Stories high and is seen by an estimated ten million annually
Many visitors stop to have their photo taken in front of McCall’s The Space Mural — A Cosmic View when visiting the National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall. Image Number: WEB11351-2010 Credit: Image by Eric Long, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution
McCall produced a number of concept paintings for the 1970 20th Century Fox motion picture Tora! Tora! Tora!, which now hang in the National Air and Space Museum’s World War II Aviation gallery entrance.
On his death in 2010 at age 90, Motherboard called him the Picasso of the Space Age which I feel is something of an insult to McCall. Perhaps the Raphael or Michelangelo of the Space Age would be a better comparison.
The Artist at work. Image via NASA
“I think when we finally are living in space, as people will be doing soon, we’ll recognize a whole new freedom and ease of life,” McCall was quoted as saying. “These space habitats will be more beautiful because we will plan and condition that beauty to suit our needs. I see a future that is very bright.”
NASA has an extensive gallery of McCall’s aerospace work and there is always McCall Studios.com for prints and more information.
Thank you for your work, sir.
Combat Gallery Sunday: The Purrfict Martial Art of Alexander Zavaliy
Much as once a week I like to take time off to cover warships (Wednesdays), on Sunday, I like to cover military art and the painters, illustrators, sculptors, and the like that produced them.
Combat Gallery Sunday: The Purrfict Martial Art of Alexander Zavaliy
Born in 27 January 1955 in Vorkuta, a coal-mining town in the Komi Republic (its north of the Arctic Circle and its name means “place teems with bears”), Alexander Zavaliy went to officer school and served in the Red Army, being forward deployed to East Germany and seeing what Afghanistan looks like on the two ruble a day plan.
Leaving the military, he studied art at Kuban State University in Krasnodar then settled in the warm Black Sea town of Gelendzhik near Novorossiysk and took up painting and drawing. In the past twenty years he has cranked out some 500 works as a professional illustrator and recently came up with the idea of portraying Russo-Soviet military history, with a slight twist.
He uses cats as models, but going beyond the feline factor, uses a lot of military authenticity.
Hussar of the Patriotic War of 1812
Tsarist Cossack of the Imperial Konvoy cat with his cavalry shaska on watermelon practice. Note the Austin-Putilov armored car in the background with its distinctive twin Maxim turrets. Of the 250~ Austins built during WWI, just 33 were Russian made Pulitov models but both kinds were used in against both the Germans and in the famed Armored Car unit in Petrograd during the Revolution, mentioned several times in John Reed’s 10 Days That Shook the World.
White Russian army officer cat complete with Tsarist cap insignia and shoulder boards. Note all four orders of the Cross of the Knights of St. George across his blouse and the British Mark V series tank behind him– 60 of these beasts were used by the Whites in the Ukraine with British assistance and went on to become the first Soviet tanks.
Black Sea Soviet Naval Infantry, WWII. Note the Maxim machinegun belt, and captured Mauser bayonet
Minesweeper. Dig the M91 Mosin on his back and the E-tool sticking up over the bedrool
Hero sniper inspecting his Mosin rifle, note the Note German Shepherd looking out through the ruins of the Theater Building in Stalingrad
Which leads to the inevitable surrender of cat versions of Friedrich Paulus, General-Feldmarshal (left) and his aides Col. Wilhelm Adam (right) and Lt.-Gen. Arthur Schmidt (middle)
For reference: ADN-ZB/TASS II. Weltkrieg 1939-45 Schlacht um Stalingrad vom Juli 1942 bis Februar 1943 Der kriegsgefangene Generalfeldmarschall Friedrich Paulus (l.), bisher Oberbefehlshaber der faschistischen 6. Armee in Stalingrad, trifft am 31.1.1943 mit seinem Stabschef, Generalleutnant Arthur Schmidt (m.), und seinen Adjutanten, Oberst Wilhelm Adam, beim Stab der sowjetischen 64. Armee in Beketowka ein.
Aufnahme Lipskerow
Russian cats in the German army– note the Schmisser and the dog collar gorget on the German Feldgendarmerie
A very happy frontovik with his accordion
Scout with his PPSH– complete with tally marks on the buttstock. Very similar to the Portrait of Soviet Guards Sgt. Alexey G. Frolchenko
Surrender of a Tiger tank. The SS Doberman doesnt look like he is going to make it, but the Wehrmacht German Shepherd just may. Note the late war PPS-43 and quilted winter uniform
A very Marshal Zhukov-like comrade cat at his desk. Note the 100 dog kills medal and the coffee glass filled with cream
And of course, a glorious Red Army VDV airborne forces paratrooper with his AK-74 and Guards telnyashka striped shirt
Of course Zavaliy also has a body of more serious work as well.
Thank you for your work, sir.
Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Richard Jack
Much as once a week I like to take time off to cover warships (Wednesdays), on Sunday, I like to cover military art and the painters, illustrators, sculptors, and the like that produced them.
Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Richard Jack
Richard Jack, though born in Sunderland, England, in 1866, was Canada’s first official war artist.
In the late 19th Century he studied at a number of esteemed art schools including the York School of Art, the South Kensington Art School, the ARA, the Royal College of Art and the Académie Julian— almost all on academic scholarships for his submitted work.
Returning to London from the Julian, he became first a black and white illustrator for Cassells and other periodicals then switched to painting, winning silver medals for his work before the Great War.
The Passing of the Chieftain by Richard Jack, York Museums Trust. Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation
Pushing 50 when Word War I began and not having a military background, he still did his part and took to sketching soldiers passing through.
The Return to the Front Victoria Railway Station, by Richard Jack, 1916, via the York Museums, on display in Lincolnshire. Trust Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation
These were subsequently published and brought him the attention of the Canadian governor general’s office, who extended an offer in 1916 to commission Jack as the official war artist to cover Canadian exploits in the war to end all wars.
Heading to the Western Front as a Major, Canadian Forces, Jack took to his work in covering the heroic stand by the Canadians at Second Ypres for posterity. Unlike the British government commissions, which encouraged a modernist approach to war, the Canadians wanted Jack to produce recognizable ‘history’ paintings as realistic as possible– and he did, controversially including bodies of the broken and dying.
Though, naturally, not actually present at the fighting, Major Jack had carefully investigated and sketched the whole ground, and has spent some time with the units which took part in the engagement, collecting from officers and men all the details and facts needed for absolute accuracy. Some of the men who had been through the battle actually posed for the picture, whilst machine-guns and all manner of military accoutrements were temporarily placed at the artist’s disposal, whose studio assumed something of the appearance of a battlefield.
This time spent on the continent yielded two massive works, The 12-foot-by-20-foot canvases of The Second Battle of Ypres, 22 April to 25 May 1915, and The Taking of Vimy Ridge, Easter Monday, 1917.
The Second Battle of Ypres, 22 April to 25 May 1915
Official war artist Major Richard Jack poses by his painting. ‘The Second Battle of Ypres, 22 April to 25 May 1915’ depicting Canadian soldiers making a stand against a German assault He painted this enormous work of art, with the canvas measuring 371.5 x 589.0cm (12 x 20 foot), in his London studio, c.1917. Commissioned by the Canadian War Memorials Fund (CWMF), an organization established by Lord Beaverbrook to document Canada’s war effort. Sir Edmund Walker, who sat on the advisory board to the CWMF, felt that Jack captured the achievements of the Canadians during the battle, but felt the work would not resonate with Canadians, who, he felt, were “not likely to appreciate such realistic treatment of war.” He was wrong and Jack’s painting remains an iconic work from the First World War. (National Archives of Canada PA 4879)
The Taking of Vimy Ridge, Easter Monday 1917. The painting is a part of the Beaverbrook Collection of War Art at the Canadian War Art Museum in Ottawa, Ontario.
After the war, Jack, a civilian again, emigrated to Canada (why not, right?) and settled in the Montreal area. Jack became a renowned portrait artist, brushing depictions of royalty, statesmen and senior officers.
Lieutenant Colonel Lancelot Robson, CMG, DSO by Richard Jack, currently part of the collection of the Hartlepool Museums and Heritage Service. Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation. Robinson was commander of the Royal Artillery who responded to the raid on Hartlepool, commanding three BL 6 inch Mk VII naval guns mounted ashore against Hipper’s squadron
Muriel Elsie, née Hirst, (1895–1969), Lady Gamage painted 1950 by Richard Jack via St Johns Museum. Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation. Muriel Gamage was a prominent worker for public causes, and had served during WWI with the VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment), organizing the military hospitals during the war, and was appointed D.J.ST.J.(Dame of Justice of the Order of St John of Jerusalem), in recognition of her service, whose badge appears on her uniform
Jack was later inducted to Royal Society of British Artists and the Royal Institute of Painters before his death in 1952, aged 86.
He spent the latter part of his life paining landscapes in his adopted country.
Richard Jack landscape, from the York Trust. Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation
You can find an in-depth study of his works here and the BBC has a collection of some 45 of his works online
His style of battle scenes has drawn much modern imitation.
Thank you for your work, sir.