ARTHUR STREETON

Mrs M. S. Atwill, Sydney;
thence by descent to Sir John and Lady Atwill, Sydney

In April 1918 Arthur Streeton was appointed an Australian Official War Artist with the rank of Honorary-Lieutenant in the 2nd Division of the AIF. He worked in France from May to August of that year, with a second tour of duty in October-November. As the Government wanted him to produce descriptive work, Streeton confined himself to landscapes. Working on the spot, first in the area between Amiens, Heilly and Villers-Bretonneux, and later at Peronne, he filled numerous sketchbooks with drawings and made other studies in watercolour. Later, in his London studio, he translated them into finished oils. Many were of the Somme Valley showing the distant engagement of the Australian troops.

Writing in the field from the dugout of Divisional Headquarters in France to Tom Roberts in London, Streeton said: 'The country and the trees all along the Somme, I need hardly say, are lovely. I hope to reflect something of it all in a few canvases I want to paint on my return'. ¹ Two weeks later he wrote again, describing what he saw from 'up a steep hill, where I had a fine view of the valley with a flat covered with lovely trees and the Somme winding through and the towers of the old church of C[orbie] and other villages and V[illers-]B[retonneux] on the distant sky line – a grand spread, and the area of battle, shell bursts and shrapnel occasionally spotting a fine sky'. ²

This view from north of Corbie matches several of his paintings – (The Somme Valley), The 8th of August Advance, and the larger version, The Somme Valley near Corbie, 1919 in the collection of the Australian War Memorial. All three offer spectacular panoramic views, the grandeur of nature disturbed only by the rolling clouds of battle smoke on the distant horizon. Streeton exhibited many of his war pictures in his 1920 solo show at the Victorian Artists' Society Galleries, East Melbourne. Of these, the art critic for The Age said: 'Mr. Streeton's canvases are a reminder that there were blue skies and sunshine even at the front'.³

1. Streeton to Roberts, 6 July 1918, from France, 2nd Divisional Headquarters, AIF; in Croll, R. H., Smike to Bulldog; Letters from Sir Arthur Streeton to Tom Roberts, Ure Smith, Sydney, 1946, p. 97.
2. 20 July 1918, op. cit., p. 98.
3. 'Mr. Streeton's Pictures: A Notable Exhibition', The Age, Melbourne, 16 March 1920, p. 7.