LONDON.- As the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War is remembered this year,
Sotheby’s will sell two paintings which stand as a living reminder of the conflict: Sir John Lavery’s celebrated depiction of the 1919 Victory Parade through Admiralty Arch, and one of Sir Alfred Munnings’ paintings recording the activities of Canadian soldiers in France. Lavery captures the jubilant mood of the march, while Munnings captures a more solitary moment, a single Canadian soldier with two saddled horses. At auction for the first time in their history, they will be offered in Sotheby’s sale of British & Irish Art in London on 10 December 2014.
Lavery, an Official War Artist and a master of depicting pageants, produced one of his finest works in Admiralty Arch, 19th July 1919 (estimate £300,000-500,000), his commemoration of the Victory Parade and celebrations which took place in central London on 19 July 1919, to mark the ending of the Great War. The nation had endured a long wait in anticipation of this moment. Though Armistice had taken place on 11 November 1918, it was not until the beginning of the following year that the dismantling of the war machine commenced. In the six-month period to July 1919, a steady stream of soldiers returned from the Western Front. The victory parade was bought forward following the signing of the Treaty of Versailles at the end of June and the subsequent parade through Paris on Bastille Day. Lavery himself had been swiftly dispatched to Northern France in the early weeks of 1919 to record – in his capacity as Official War Artist – the temporary hospitals, supply depots and ordnance stores before they were decommissioned. The occasion of the procession, however, would have been a fitting finale to Lavery’s involvement in the war.
On the great day, Lavery took a prime position on the roof of Carlton House Terrace to watch and paint the display, in the company of society figures. The scene presented particular challenges, due to the procession’s constant movement. He found it was necessary to operate like a camera, fix upon a configuration of the parading regiments to his liking, and record it in the moment. The regiments, comprising some 15,000 troops, were massed in Hyde Park near the Albert Memorial. They proceeded to march through Knightsbridge down the Mall where they performed the complex manoeuvre of passing through the narrow Admiralty Arch at Lavery’s vantage point.
Lavery was equipped with his portable easel, which enabled him to execute standard 25 x 30 inch canvases, and with his long training as an ‘artist-reporter’, he was adept at working quickly. In its bravura handling of paint, the composition displays the confident hand of an artist skilled at capturing moving scenes. The flags of the Allies, including the United States and Japan, were proudly bedecked around Admiralty Arch, the Mall, and the surrounding streets. The joyous mood of the parade – led by Field Marshall Haig, General Pershing, Admiral Beatty and Marshall Foch – was intense, enhanced by the massed colours in every line of sight. Lavery’s painting is not only an historic record of one of the 20th century’s most historic events, but also one of the artist’s most accomplished works.
A Patrol in France, 1917 by Sir Alfred Munnings depicts a solitary Canadian soldier holding the reins of two saddled horses, awaiting the return of his fellow rider who is presumably carrying out field reconnaissance (estimate £150,000-250,000). As the course of the war unfolded, Munnings was one of the many artists called upon to record the Allied war effort. In 1917 he was commissioned by the Canadian government to paint their activities in France for the Canadian War Records, an initiative which was established through the tireless efforts of Lord Beaverbrook to ensure that Canadian achievements in the war were recognised.
Munnings’ experiences painting en plein air, during which time he honed his instinctive response to painting horses, had prepared him well for the new challenges on the front line. Equipped with three stretchers plus numerous canvases cut to fit them, together with sketching papers, watercolours, oils and brushes, all packed into a light, narrow box, Munnings worked energetically between 1917 and 1918.
There was a certain inevitability that Munnings, one of the greatest painters of horses in history, should find himself assigned to a cavalry unit during the war. By early summer of 1918, he was ordered home, and the following year, 45 of his pictures were shown to great acclaim at the Canadian War Records exhibition at the Royal Academy.
A Patrol in France, 1917, painted in 1918, is a version of the same composition produced by Munnings under the commission for the Canadian War Memorials Fund, which is titled On the Edge of a Wood and in the collection of the Canadian War Museum.
Munnings pays tribute to the vital role horses played in the war, and of the emotive bond shared between man and horse – which was brought to life more recently in the celebrated War Horse productions. Few artists, if any, would have been better suited to Munnings’ commission from the Canadian government. The substantial body of works he produced stand today as an important record of the Canadian war effort, as Lord Beaverbrook intended.
