Rare WW1 watercolours on show Anzac Week

Rare WW1 watercolours on show Anzac Week

Watercolour New Zealand is holding its latest national exhibition, 'Splash' at the Wellington Cathedral of St Paul over Anzac Week. Opening 18th April to 3rd May it is featuring over 100 WW1 watercolour paintings, prints and pen and ink drawings by New Zealand WW1 servicemen. This collection of rare artworks has been assembled especially to coincide with Anzac commemorations. Many of the watercolours are beautifully painted and small as there was only room for a small sketch book in a kit bag. These works have survived 100 years in the care of New Zealand families and few have ever been exhibited. Four of the servicemen are from Wellington and they sketched and painted scenes as diverse as searchlights off Gibraltar, humorous encounters in sea fog, naval action and the countryside in 1914-1918. They painted on whatever was to hand including cardboard, writing paper and flimsy government stationery. The exhibition includes 25 framed watercolour prints selected from the National War Art Collection held by Archives New Zealand. These watercolours are the works of two of New Zealand’s Official War Artists Nugent Welch and George Butler and the renowned Gallipoli Artist Horace Moore-Jones. In contrast to the servicemen the Official War Artists express more of the desolation of war and ruined landscapes.

In ‘Splash’, over 250 contemporary watercolours on all themes are for sale but by sometimes including a touch of poppy red for remembrance in their paintings, the artist members of Watercolour New Zealand have responded to the Anzac theme. They have also painted a group of fifty small watercolours as 'Postcards to the front', imagining what the troops would have liked to remind them of home during WW1. Through the support of the Diplomatic Corps artists from Pakistan and several other countries have also contributed postcards to their troops.

The programme at Wellington Cathedral includes demonstrations of watercolour painting 12pm-2pm; floor talk on Sunday 19 April at 2pm on conservation of 100 year old works on paper and the audience is encouraged to bring in their own WW1 artworks and artefacts. On Monday 20 April 2pm Captain Matt Gauldie, Official Artist of the New Zealand Army will speak on his experiences as an Army artist.

ENDS

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