AWM Collection Record: ART03529

AWM image ART03529

ID Number: ART03529
Title: 3rd Australian General Hospital, Abbeville
Maker: Streeton, Arthur
Object type: Drawing
Place made: France: Picardie, Somme, Abbeville
Date made: 1918
Physical description: watercolour heightened with white, with pencil
Measurements: 27.8 cm x 84.2 cm
Summary: Depicts the Australian Army Medical Service, No 3 Australian General Hospital at Abbeville, with rows of large tents and wooden buildings, set out in 'Nightingale' pattern, and Red Cross and Union Jack flags flying from a flag pole.
Arthur Streeton is best known as one of the painters of the Heidelberg School in Melbourne in the late nineteenth century. His name is linked with Tom Roberts, Charles Conder, and Frederick McCubbin as responsible for developing in Australia an impressionist technique of painting, and depicting scenes that embraced the nationalistic concerns of the last two decades of the nineteenth century. During his lifetime he was acknowledged as the finest painter of the Australian landscape; he was the first Australian painter to be honoured by a retrospective exhibition in his own lifetime; and only the second to be knighted.

In 1918 while based in London, he was appointed by the Australian War Memorial as an official war artist and travelled to France to record the involvement of Australians in the battles taking place along the Somme River. During the period of his employment he produced ten paintings and eighty-six drawings that are held by the Memorial. These were all executed in the years 1918 and 1919. The Memorial later purchased his HMS Renown, Sydney Harbour painted in 1922, and commissioned several large paintings of significant wartime subjects.
Copyright: AWM copyright
Related subject: Medical services; Nursing; Tents
Related unit: 1st Australian Imperial Force; 3 Australian General Hospital; Australian Army Nursing Service
Related place: France; France: Picardie, Somme, Abbeville
Related conflict: First World War, 1914-1918

Last-Modified: Tue, 24 Jun 2008 19:09:57 GMT

Go to our Collections Search

Go to this record in our Collections Search