Simpson and his donkey, Gallipoli painting

Horace Millichamp Moore-Jones, Private Simpson, D.C.M., & his donkey at Anzac, 1918.

Moore-Jones’s most widely recognised work was not painted at the battlefront, but from a photograph. His depiction of Private John Simpson Kirkpatrick and his donkey was done when Moore-Jones was touring his watercolours in Dunedin in 1918, three years after the Gallipoli landings.

The photograph this painting is based on is actually of a New Zealand medic, Richard Henderson. Henderson served in Gallipoli and later on the Western Front. Moore-Jones altered the composition of the photo to make for a more dramatic drawing.

• Read biography of Horace Moore-Jones (NZHistory)
• Find out more about Simpson (John Simpson Kirkpatrick) on Wikipedia