Behind the Twisted Wire, Jenny Haworth’s study of World War I artists focuses on the work of two commissioned war artists – Nugent Welch and George Butler – both of them were closely associated with Wellington. Welch and Butler were specially selected by the army high command in Britain to record the New Zealanders’ experiences in World War I. Their experience and approach to the war was completely different. Welch had been a serving soldier – a member of the Rifle Brigade, whereas George Butler had not been in the army, nor even in a war zone, before he arrived on the Western Front in September 1918. Yet both of them made a skilful and artistically valuable contribution to the collection of war art now held by Archives New Zealand. So much of what they painted takes us on a journey to the Western Front.
It is their art and experiences on the Western Front which will be the subject of this talk. The presentation will be illustrated with art very rarely seen. Very few of the soldier-artists paintings are on public display but are in the collections of the National Archives and the Auckland War Memorial Museum.
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Feature image: Detail from: Stretcher Party by George Edmund Butler, Charcoal wash. Ref: AAAC898 NCW473