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18
GEORGE BUTLER (BRITAIN, NEW ZEALAND 1870-1936) - Messines 30 x 46.5 cm
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Notes: Provenance:
From the Estate of Robert Heaton Rhodes (1861 - 1956)
Butler was appointed as an official war artist in September 1918. He made rough pencil sketches, often under fire, which on return to camp he amplified and painted sketches on a larger scale . His view of war was devoid of glory and heroism. His landscapes capture, devoid of humans, the devastation of the Western Front.
Robert Heaton Rhodes acquired, or was given, both the George Butler views of Messines from the artist at the "front".
Rhodes served with the military for over 30 years. In 1902 he went to the Boer War as Captain commanding F. Squadron of the South Island Regiment of the Eight Contingent. He was awarded the Queen''s South Africa medal with four clasps.
In September 1915 the New Zealand government appointed Rhodes as special commissioner to visit Egypt, Gallipoli and Malta to investigate the treatment and transport of sick and wounded New Zealand soldiers. In November 1917, Rhodes was in France as commissioner for the New Zealand Red Cross supervising its work in hospitals on the front and in England. It was in France that he met George Butler. Rhodes received an award from the Serbian Red Cross, the French Legion d''Honneur and was made a K.B.E (military division) in 1920.
Messines
In May and early June, the Australian, New Zealand and British tunnelers dug a series of mine shafts underneath the German trenches and laid 21 explosive mines, a total of 1 million pounds of high explosive. On 7th June, these mines were exploded resulting in over 10,000 German losses. A British soldier described the blasts as "the greatest sight I have ever seen. Great sheets of flame shot hundreds of feet in the air and the earth trembled".
Accepted Forms of Payment:
April 30, 2007 3:00 PM AEST
Annandale, Australia
Lawsons
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