A salute to overlooked war artists

BEHIND THE TWISTED WIRE: New Zealand artists In World War 1<br><b>Jennifer Haworth</b><br><i>Wily...
BEHIND THE TWISTED WIRE: New Zealand artists In World War 1<br><b>Jennifer Haworth</b><br><i>Wily Publications</i>
Some years ago Cantabrian author Jennifer Haworth published an excellent history of our World War 2 artists.

Behind the Twisted Wire, well designed by Quentin Wilson, provides a handsome matching format large-scale paperback brim-full of colour reproductions of our World War 1 experience.

Haworth writes well and with conviction. She has organised the book by artists and themes.

Nugent Welch, George Butler and Walter Bowring are the big names and each gets a lengthy chapter.

While the focus is on their war art, she documents their early and post-war lives (and some of their non-war art).

While interesting people, we learn they were not always well-treated by the army, which was slow to appreciate the role of artists in documenting warfare and even slower to pay up.

As Haworth shows, although officially British dead were not meant to be depicted, some artists broke the rule.

Above all, though, they bring a sense of colour and mood to the landscapes of the battlefields.

It's easy to forget that people saw them in colour, not the black and white of historic photographs.

A couple of years ago I curated a WW1 exhibition for the New Zealand Portrait Gallery.

Research for it reminded me of the opportunities lost 100 years ago.

We appointed our military artists far too late, paid them shockingly (if at all) and failed to establish a war memorial art collection.

Many sketches, watercolours and oils survive, mostly with Archives New Zealand, but we have yet to establish a gallery for their permanent display.

Perhaps this book may help?

Don't let the shocking proof-reading distract you.

Behind the Twisted Wire is a great read and a reminder that despite all the hoopla of the WW1 100 commemorations, much remains to be done.

 

THE ANZAC EXPERIENCE: New Zealand, Australia and Empire in the First World War<br><b>Christopher...
THE ANZAC EXPERIENCE: New Zealand, Australia and Empire in the First World War<br><b>Christopher Pugsley</b><br><i>Oratia Books</i>
Haworth acknowledges the support of Chris Pugsley, the doyen of New Zealand military historians, so it's appropriate he's back in print with one of his best books, The Anzac Experience.

It was first published in 2004 and remains a must-read.

A few things have overtaken aspects of the book (notably the recent research on the number of Kiwis who served at Gallipoli), but it remains a central text on our WW1 experience.

The Anzac Experience takes us from the South African (Boer) War to the end of the Great War.

Pugsley looks at politics, training and military discipline, but the strength of his book is to remind us of the brilliance of the dominion armies, Canada above all, New Zealand second and Australia as well.

It's a useful antidote to the Blackadder TV view of buffoonish British chateau generals and a reminder both sides had to struggle to master a new age of citizen-soldier warfare on an unprecedented scale.

- Gavin McLean is a Wellington historian.

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