New Zealand War Artists: Exploring the Heroic Code in Official New Zealand War Art

Abstract

Despite the fact that New Zealand has a rich military history, the artworks produced to commemorate this country’s involvement in foreign conflicts have been left, literally, in the dark. This thesis focuses on the creation of the role of official New Zealand war artists, with an emphasis on the depiction of the heroic code in official New Zealand war art. Such a study is important in order to shed light on a genre of New Zealand art that has had little academic exposure or analysis. The study of official New Zealand war art is also important because such art did not follow the standard conventions of representation; instead the genre focussed on the role of the New Zealand soldier in order to bolster the morale of civilian communities removed from the frontlines of war. Primary material was used in this research, as well as secondary sources that focussed on the history of the Great War, the Second World War and the Afghanistan wars. Secondary research material surrounding the work of official New Zealand war art is extremely limited and I have, therefore, relied heavily on archival material, interviews and the work of a select number of New Zealand military and war art historians. The principal focus is the work of artists George Edmund Butler, Nugent Herman Welch, Peter McIntyre, Russell Clark and Matt Gauldie. The research I conducted produced a number of key findings, namely the appointment of official New Zealand war artists was a complex matter, the genre of official war art evolved over time to incorporate new subject matters, and official war artists utilised new techniques to capture the action, the drama and the history of New Zealand’s part in international conflicts. The main conclusion drawn from my research is that official New Zealand war artists used the heroic code in their artworks in order to depict the people, culture and operations of the New Zealand Army in a positive light.