Visions of the Front 1916-18
ADELAIDE ARTIST'S CHEF D'OEUVRE
Commemorated in Manchester
The major WWI work by Henry Lamb is the centrepiece of an exhibition which took place this year on the centenary of the major battles which took place 100 years ago this year. The exhibition is one of the University of Manchester's contribution to the centenary and is hung at the university's Whitworth Gallery.
The exhibition also includes paintings, drawings and prints by artists such as Paul Nash, C. R. W. Nevinson and David Bomberg and Henry Lamb, created out of their experiences on the front lines.e.
Lamb's WW1 work is not in the Australian War Memorial because he was with the British Imperial forces not the Australian and his work did not go to that institution automatically.
Lamb's World War II work as opposed too WWI is represented in the AWM's collection.
The artist distinguished himself depicting and fighting in the two world wars.
The handsomely refurbished Whitworth has devoted a near whole lengthy wall to Lamb's 'Advance Dressing Station on the Struma' loaned by the Manchester Art Gallery.
Lamb's posting, distant from the more horrendous battles on the Western Front, reflected Lamb's original plan to become a doctor but he later moved on to Palestine where he did some much more peaceful subjects - flowers - which sometimes come onto the market for $1000 or so.
Five studies/sketches for the painting are also included.
The most finished sketch for this painting which was recently donated from Australia to the Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery at Leeds University also in the north of England across the Pennines is not included because the other works are closer at hand.
It was purchased and given given to the SABG to enhance the gallery's small group of British paintings of the period which include another recent gift from the same source TRIPLE ALLIANCE by Duncan Grant.This still life painting from the same period referred to the formation of the war time alliance opposing Britain.
Largely as a result of Quentin's professorship at Leeds the university has a small group of Bloomsbury paintings. Its acquisition received an Arts Council grant as its pendant by Vanessa Bell was already in the collection.
This reflected the incumbency of Quentin Bell as head of the university's art department.
Lamb's finished study of a little heralded WW1 battle in Greece. The study which came from Austrlia is now in the Leeds University's Art Gallery collection named after its tailoring sponsor.
Lamb was a founder of the Camden Town School rather than the Bloomsbury Group but he interacted with them - and sometimes refused to interact as when he, a handsome blue eyed hetero sexual, had to fend off the wandering hands of the older author Lytton Strachey.
The Leeds sketch of a dressing station is pertinent to this as he spent the war years in medical service making use of what he had learned through three years of university training to become a doctor.
He was not in the best of health and only succeeded in contributing to the war effort because of this background.
He joined the army as a medical officer with the Inniskillings where he became a Captain.
From Macedonia he was transferred to Palestine in 1917, where his ‘‘magnificent bravery’’ tending to the wounded during the Military Cross, one of Britain's highest bravery awards.
In Palestine he did some delightful studies of flowers some of which have come onto the market for under $A1000 each.
Unfortunately the donated sketch was acquired only after two years closely watching the international art markets.
With the centenary “celebrations” now upon us competition for such offerings would be much more heated.
The watercolour displays a hint of Vorticism and one wonders where British art would have gone had the fervour of that movement not evaporated in the clouds with the mustard gas on the Western Front.
Lamb went mainly a portait panter, among his sitters being Sir Michael Ernest Sadler the university's Vice- Chancellor of 1911-23 and the n Chancellor..
The university gallery is now named after members of the Burton tailoring family which richly endowed it with contemporary art long after I finished my studies.
The Burton business was founded by Sir Montague Burton who developed the concept of Ten pound suits to be sold at his stores he created on the British high street.
When the British servicemen were demobbed they were given they were provided with civvies by Burtons including a suit.
Lamb was a founder of the Camden Town School rather than the Bloomsbury Group but he interacted with them - and sometimes refused to interact as when he, a handsome blue eyed hetero sexual, had to fend off the wandering hands of the older author Lytton Strachey.
Hopefully more war sketches by Lamb, who gave up medicine to become an artist against his parents' wishes, will come to light.
The sketch donated from Australia cost just over $A3000.
