First World War masterpieces in final phase of conservation — completion date February 2007 at the Canadian War MuseumOttawa, November 29, 2006 — The last four large First World War masterpieces currently on display in the Thomas Fuller Passage and Commissionaire's Way corridors of the Canadian War Museum will be restored before the end of February 2007. The oversized paintings, some as large as nine square metres, have been attracting interest and donations ever since their display in the CWM's new facility brought the need for cleaning and repair to the public's attention.
Since then, the Friends of the Canadian War Museum (FCWM) have provided more than $232K to conserve a total of eight works of art from funds raised through their ongoing campaign "Passing the Torch," which supports CWM activities.
"The support of the Friends has been fantastic!" said Mr. J. (Joe) Geurts, Director and CEO of the Canadian War Museum. "Without their commitment and generosity these historic masterpieces could not have been conserved."
In the coming years, the Friends of the Canadian War Museum (FCWM) will continue their efforts to raise funds for projects such as the refurbishing of key military vehicles and artifacts, education programs, collections acquisitions and conservation.
The Museum's extraordinary collection of 13,000 works of Canadian war art — known as the Beaverbrook Collection of War Art — includes 30 large First World War canvases by artists such as Richard Jack, Alfred Munnings, Homer Watson, and Norman Wilkinson. Because of their size, the artworks suffered from inadequate storage conditions over decades. Once conservation is completed early next year, all of the large First World War paintings on display will finally have been restored and an important part of Canadian military history preserved.
The Canadian War Museum plans to restore the 13 remaining large First World War paintings — currently stored in the Museum's environment-controlled art vault — in the near future.
From now through February, visitors will be able to watch four major artworks undergo conservation. The paintings are No Man's Land by Maurice Cullen, Battlefields of Ypres by David Young Cameron, Canadians Arriving on the Rhine by Inglis Sheldon-Williams, and Canadian Foresters in Windsor Park by Gerald Moira. (Further information on these four works can be found in the background document below.)
Visitors will be able to see the paintings' original colours and details emerge from the canvas. They will have the opportunity to talk with the conservators about the specialized work required and learn more about the particular challenges involved in conserving artworks of this size, age and significance.
Mr. J. (Joe) Geurts remarked that visitors have shown great interest in watching museum work that is usually done behind-the-scenes. "We want to make the Canadian War Museum's collections and activities as accessible to the public as possible," he said, "and by having the conservators work in public view, everyone gains greater appreciation for the work of the Museum and for the works of art."
Restoration work has been scheduled to allow visitors to see the conservators in action every week from 9 a.m to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday and Thursdays from 1 until 8 p.m.
The Canadian War Museum is open Tuesday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Thursdays until 9 p.m. Admission is free on Thursday evenings from 4 p.m. until closing.
Additional information about the Canadian War Museum is available by calling 819 776-8600 or 1 800 555-5621.
Information about the Friends of the Canadian War Museum is available online at http://www.friends-amis.org/fcwmindex_e.html or by phone at 819 776-8618.
BACKGROUNDERWhy these paintings require conservation
These paintings were stored under inadequate conditions for more than 75 years until the opening of the new Canadian War Museum facility in 2005. The canvas on all of them is sagging and soiled and there are areas in which the paint is lifting or flaking. Conservators will clean the paintings, eliminate deformations in the canvas, consolidate the paint, and in-paint areas of loss as necessary.
As part of its mandate, the Museum is committed to the preservation of its collections. This is accomplished by providing appropriate environmental conditions for storage and display and, when necessary, reversing damage through conservation. This ongoing conservation project will provide visitors with a rare opportunity to see this commitment in action, and to better understand the technical processes involved.
For this conservation project funded by the Friends of the Canadian War Museum, four First World War paintings were conserved through the spring and summer of 2005. The conserved paintings are: Canada's Grand Armada, 1914 by Frederick Challener; Canadians in the Snow by J. W. Morrice; Physical Training in Witley Camp by Laura Knight and Return to Mons by Sheldon Williams.
The First World War Paintings to be Restored by February 2007
Maurice Cullen
No Man's Land, ca. 1920
Oil on canvas
244.8 x 183.2 cm
Beaverbrook Collection of War Art
CWM 19710261-0134
About the Artist:
Maurice Galbraith Cullen was born in St. John's, Newfoundland in 1866. He first studied sculpture under Louis-Philippe Hébert at the Monument national in Montréal and subsequently attended classes in Paris at the École des Beaux-Arts where, inspired by the impressionist paintings he saw in that city, he decided to become a painter. In 1895, he returned to Montréal to establish himself as an artist. In 1918, during the First World War, Sir Edmund Walker, who, with National Gallery director Eric Brown ran the Canadian arm of the Canadian War Memorials Funds scheme that commissioned official works of art, sent him to France as a war artist. There, from behind the lines, he painted oil sketches on boards. (These are on display in the Museum's Hartland Molson Library.) The human and material destruction he saw made a deep impression on him, which is reflected in the dark, atmospheric colours that characterize many of his finished war paintings. He died at Chambly, Quebec, in 1934.
About the Subject:
No Man's Land may well be a depiction of the Douai plain below Vimy Ridge in France, a subject that inspired Cullen. The vast featureless countryside is cloaked in darkness, emphasizing the inhospitable and forbidding terrain where many Canadian soldiers fought during the four years of the First World War. Cullen completed this work in 1920 in Montréal.
David Young Cameron
Battlefields of Ypres, ca. 1920
Oil on canvas
336.0 x 198.5 cm
Beaverbrook Collection of War Art
CWM 19710261-0118
About the Artist:
David Young Cameron was born in Scotland in 1865 and studied art in Glasgow and Edinburgh. In early 1918, the Canadian War Memorials Fund arranged for him to be sent to Belgium to gather material for two large landscapes that he completed afterwards, the last in late 1919. Cameron seemed quite unsatisfied with the Fund: "[I] am rather fed up with Canadians, their officers, officials & mistakes," he noted in a January 1919 letter to a British official. Whether his complaint related to bureaucratic difficulties, or to the sorts of pressures to alter compositions, similar to what other artists complained about, is unknown. Cameron's approach to painting was influenced by the atmospheric compositions of his near-contemporaries, American James McNeill Whistler and Mathys Maris, a member of the landscape-oriented Hague School. He was knighted in 1924 and died in Scotland in 1945.
About the Subject:
This painting represents the Ypres salient battlefield under snow. In the foreground, the extensive destruction of the area is evoked in a swathe of broken walls, stricken trees, and huge shell-holes. The background is a snow-covered wasteland that extends to the far ridge, possibly Passchendaele Ridge. The picture was composed from several studies and does not represent an exact spot. Instead, it provides a general impression of the area in winter after the tide of war had passed. In November 1919, Major Cameron wrote that he had "decided to call the picture "The Battlefields of Ypres—After."
Inglis Sheldon-Williams
Canadians Arriving on the Rhine, 1918–1919
Oil on canvas
454.7 x 302.3 cm
Beaverbrook Collection of War Art
CWM 19710261-0657
About the Artist:
Inglis Sheldon-Williams was born in England in 1870 and settled in Saskatchewan in 1887. He returned to England in 1896 to study art in London, Paris, and Ghent. During the South-African War (1899–1902) and the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905), the well-known illustrated journal, The Sphere, hired him to provide on-the-spot drawings for publication. In 1913, he returned to Saskatchewan and, in 1916, was asked to set up the art department at Regina College. In 1918, the Canadian War Memorials Fund hired him as a war artist. He had a nervous breakdown shortly after completing his two commissioned compositions. Sheldon-Williams returned to Saskatchewan after the war, but a series of bad investments precluded him from staying in Canada, something he regretted until his death in England in 1940.
About the Subject:
Finished in 1919, this work is intended to record the final Canadian achievement of the First World War, when the Canadian Corps took up a defensive position on the banks of the Rhine River, a few miles above Bonn in Germany. The painting depicts part of the low mountain range on the east bank called "The Seven Hills," which is dominated by the Drachenfels ("Dragon Crag"). Sheldon-Williams used previously completed on-the-spot sketches of Canadian soldiers to give a human focus to this monumental canvas. This painting originally hung in the Senate Chamber on Parliament Hill, but was taken down in 1922 for an exhibition at London's Royal Academy. Prior to its current display, records indicate that it was last publicly exhibited in 1967.
Gerald Moira
Canadian Foresters in Windsor Park, ca. 1917
Oil on canvas
266.7 x 306 cm
Beaverbrook Collection of War Art
Canadian War Museum
19710261-0430
About the artist:
In 1867, Gerald Moira was born Giraldo Eduardo Lobo de Moura in London, the city where he later trained and taught. Subsequently, he became principal of the Edinburgh College of Art. He died in 1959. A well regarded muralist, he had already begun his painting of Canadian foresters in Windsor Park in 1917, when it was spotted by P. G. Konody, the art advisor to the Canadian War Memorials Fund scheme, who immediately secured him a commission. This painting and the massive hospital triptych on display nearby in the Canadian War Museum were the result. Moira had been less successful in acquiring work with the British war art program, with his June 1917 request for employment being dismissed by one Ministry of Information official as "embarrassing."
About the painting:
This painting depicts the first battalion of Canadian foresters to come to England. Officially known as the 224th Canadian Forestry Battalion, here Moira shows them working below the walls of Windsor Castle. The fluttering flag on its roof indicates that King George V is in residence. The Corps brought their own equipment with them which, at the time, was valued at $250,000. In 1922, Moira's biographer described the painting as "a document of Empire, a record of loyal labour, an epic of strength, with all of which it unites the qualities of highest art and powerful decoration."
Information (media):
Christina Selin
Senior Communications Officer
Canadian War Museum
Telephone: 819 776-8607
E-mail: mailto:christina.selin@warmuseum.ca
Pierre Leduc
Media Relations Officer
Canadian War Museum
Phone: 819 776-8608
E-mail: mailto:pierre.leduc@warmuseum.ca
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