Canadian official war artists

The role of the artist and his or her work embraces the causes, course and consequences of conflict and it has been primarily an essentially educational purpose, but now is a culturally independent act of witness in contemporary Canada.

The Canadian-born, England-based businessman viewed war art not only as a form of historical documentation, but also an expression of national identity.

Some of the extensive footage that official cinematographers produced of soldiers, machinery, and horses was later incorporated into Lest We Forget (1934), directed by Frank Badgley.

Munnings painted many scenes, including a mounted portrait of General Jack Seely on his horse Warrior in 1918 (now in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa).

[9] In what is known as "the last great cavalry charge" at the Battle of Moreuil Wood, Gordon Flowerdew was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for leading Lord Strathcona's Horse (Royal Canadians) in a successful engagement with entrenched German forces.

[10] The Canadian Forestry Corps invited Munnings to tour their work camps, and he produced drawings, watercolors and paintings, including Draft Horses, Lumber Mill in the Forest of Dreux in France in 1918.

The government recognized that "a war so epic in its scope by land, sea and air, and so detailed and complex in its mechanism, requires interpreting [by artists] as well as recording.

Named the first “service artist” in 1941, he spent two winters in Ottawa before being posted to London, where he was attached to different regiments in England and Wales.

His paintings of camp life and convoys reflect his keen attention to the details of vehicles, artillery, and uniforms.

In 1943, on the Alaskan island of Kiska, he transformed sub-zero weather and howling gales into a powerful document of this remote theatre of war.