war art

Horace Moore-Jones and Gallipoli

NZEF war art programme

The first official war art programme of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) was established in mid-1918 by a group of senior New Zealand military and civilian officials. Some records refer to this as the New Zealand War Artists’ Section, but it does not appear to have even been given this title officially. The reason for this may be the haphazard nature of the programme’s conception.

For a few short months between April 1918 and the beginning of 1919, New Zealand had a small but productive group of official war artists engaged in documenting the activities of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) in France, Belgium, England and the Middle East. The NZEF had intended to expand this war art programme further but the November 1918 Armistice saw the New Zealand government discontinue funding.

During the 1950s the First and Second World War art collections were merged to form the National Collection of War Art (NCWA). Custody of the NCWA was transferred to the National Art Gallery. However, like the Dominion Museum, the Gallery did not have the resources to adequately house and maintain this large collection. Approximately two-thirds of the NCWA was sent to regional council facilities (including art galleries), Returned Services Clubs, Defence Force branches, and to the Auckland War Memorial Museum.

Find out more about some of the Kiwi war artists who produced unofficial and official war art during the First World War. Many of their works are now part of the New Zealand National Collection of War Art (NCWA) held at Archives New Zealand. Each thumbnail links to a page with further information.

This web feature was written by Caroline Lord and produced by the NZHistory.net.nz team.

Note: Research for this feature based on unpublished thesis: Caroline Lord, 'A Forgotten Contribution: rediscovering the production and significance of New Zealand's official and unofficial First World War Artists', PhD thesis, University of Canterbury (due for completion 2012).

Civilian with donkey cart by Ernest Herber Thompson, 1916.

French cavalry in the rain by Louis Raemakers, circa 1914-1918.