Maurice Galbraith Cullen 1866 - 1934

The Park Gallery, Toronto

Private Collection, Toronto

Sylvia Antoniou, Maurice Cullen, 1866-1934, Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Queen's University, Kingston, 1982, pp. 36 and 55

Ablain St. Nazaire, near Vimy Ridge,  is a farming village which was virtually destroyed during the First World War. 

Cullen received his commission as a war artist in February 1918.  He was 52 years old at the time and was one of the first four artists appointed by the Canadian War Memorials Fund.  The church depicted in this lot is also the subject of a monumental canvas by J.W. Beatty in 1918, now in the collection of the Canadian War Museum, and a watercolour by David Milne, also a war artist, in the National Gallery.

According to Antoniou, the sketches and related works produced by Cullen during this brief period depicting Ablain St. Nazaire and other French villages "bear no dates - just names - but the author has been able to place them in the time period of June 18 - July 18, 1918."