Australian official war artists

The rôle of the artist and his work embraces the causes, course and consequences of conflict and it has an essentially educational purpose.

The Australian War Records Section was created in 1917, largely as a result of lobbying by Bean, to implement the Commonwealth's war art scheme, and ten expatriate volunteers already in England were nominated as "official artists".

In August 1917 H. C. Smart selected two, Leist and Power, to cover the European theatre.

[7] Artists commissioned as members of the AIF to work officially as artists for Australia with troops in the field, specially appointed to visit the front for periods ranging from three months upwards: Mainly younger artists who had enlisted in the A.I.F., and fought through with the troops, later being detailed specially for the work upon pictures for war records: All three worked on dioramas for which Louis McCubbin painted the backdrops.

[9] The practice of artists being members of the military services broadly ended after the Korean War.

Australian official war artists, 1916–1918 by George Coates, 1920. Oil on canvas, 124.2 x 104.5 cm. The group portrait presents, left to right: front — George Bell ; standing — John Longstaff , Charles Bryant , George Washington Lambert , A. Henry Fullwood , James Quinn , H. Septimus Power , Arthur Streeton ; and seated back — Will Dyson , Fred Leist .
Artworks by Arthur Streeton and sculptures by Web Gilbert on display at the Australian War Memorial in 2012
Arthur Streeton : Amiens, the key of the west , oil-on-canvas, completed in 1919.
Lieutenant Frank Hodgkinson
Captain Conway Bown, Australian Army Official War Artist, Iraq, 2006