A watercolour over pencil entitled 3 Afs and dated 4 August… - Antique & Collectables Auction, Day 1 - Dunbar Sloane Ltd.

Lot No.

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Description:

A watercolour over pencil entitled 3 Afs and dated 4 August 1918, signed Will Longstaff, the scene shows camouflaged tents and huts with a plane in the foreground. It is presumed that, as in the rear there are large hangar type tents dwarfing figures in the foreground, that this is the 3rd Squadron, Australia flying Corps. Looking at holdings of watercolours of the period when it was known he was in France, the scene is similar to that at Glisy near Villers-Bretonneux dated 5 August 1918, the image is also important due to its portrayal of camouflage - the artist being Oic of Camouflage for Australia during World War I. Some foxing. 255 mm x 355 mm. Captain William Frederick Longstaff, the distinguished Australian artist, was born in Ballarat Victoria, Australia in 1879. In the early 1920s he established a popular reputation with allegorical wall paintings in the vein of the Angel of Mons, but he did more solid work both as an official war artist to the Australian Government and as Oic of Camouflage with the Australian Forces during World War I. Longstaff, who studied Art in Australia, the Slade Art school in London, and in Paris, began his military career in the South African Boer war where he served both as a soldier and an artist, after the Boer war he returned to Australia and established an Art Studio in Adelaide. Shortly before the onset of World War I he enlisted in the Australian Expeditionary Force in France and was then sent to Gallipoli on active service. He was wounded in this campaign and evacuated to an Australian Remount Unit in Weymouth, England. He was then claimed by his cousin, the famous portrait painter Sir John Longstaff, who had set up a Studio in St. John’s wood, London. Longstaff was appointed to join a group of specially selected artists called the war Records section, working under Major Treloar, who later became Director of the Australian war Memorial. During World War I Longstaff recorded numerous scenes in his sketch books covering many campaigns on the Western front in France and Belgium. Captain Longstaff was twice Mentioned in Despatches for his work in camouflage techniques and won very high praise from Lt. Col. Durant, the claim was made that as a result of his work the Allied death toll was reduced by thousands. In late 1917 he was partially blinded for a period, yet still painted remarkable watercolours whilst convalescing, after the Armistice he remained in the Services and returned to London with his colleagues to paint from their sketches, a series of war pictures (now in the Australian war Memorial), after leaving the Services he remained in England for the remainder of his life. He settled in Sussex in the 1930s where he continued to paint until his death in 1953. Longstaff used well-known motifs to trigger emotion. His scarlet poppies are flowers that could be found in the Flanders fields, but they also carry the traditional connotations of shed blood and remembrance; they represent a floral blanket covering the bloodied bodies of unknown soldiers; at the same time like the paper poppies worn on Remembrance day, they are a tribute from the living to the dead, the portrayal of the steel-helmeted soldiers rising from the cornfields extends the range of visual emblems used by Longstaff; the plentiful harvest; the harvest of men; the steel-helmeted crosses covering the graves of many soldiers; and the helmeted bayonets raised in cheer and victory. Famous for his Menin gate at Midnight painting held in the Australian war Memorial he also painted “Carillon” which is said to show the ghosts of New Zealand soldiers on the beaches of Belgium listening to the carillon bells in their home country - painted in 1932, the painting is permanently housed at Archives New Zealand, Wellington, the Australian war Memorial recently held a dedicated exhibition of Longstaff’s work entitled “Will Longstaff: Art and Remembrance.”

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Category:

Art: Watercolours, Other Works on Paper