War Art

Over the last 95 years, more than 200 artists have been charged with capturing the military history of our nation. With their brush stokes they recorded Vimy Ridge, the Somme, D-Day, Korea, Bosnia and Afghanistan to mention only a few. They sketched and painted amidst gunfire, explosions and death, and their work still has an immediacy that gets to the emotional root of war and conflict.

Doug Bradford is a barber. He has been cutting hair for 50 years in his hometown of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., and in his spare time he paints. He never went to art school. His only teacher was his mother, who loved art and encouraged all six of her children to sketch and paint. She must have been remarkable, since two of them, Doug and his brother Kenneth, paint well enough to have their work collected by the Canadian War Museum.

Scott Waters has an unusual vantage point for an artist. Over the last two decades he has created a body of work that both supports and tears down the mythology of soldiering. For the three years before that, he lived it. Twenty-three years ago the artist served as an infantryman in the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI).

In 1985, on the 75th anniversary of the Royal Canadian Navy, Geoffrey Bagley donated 92 naval artworks to the Canadian War Museum, so in this the centennial year of the navy, it seems fitting to celebrate his contribution to Canada’s war art.

Every Canadian should have the opportunity to travel to Europe and walk in the footsteps of those who served in the First and Second World Wars. There, part of our history is somehow more tangible; it is found in the cemeteries and on the faces of the people who tend them and remember. For one lucky artist, that opportunity came her way as part of National Defence’s Canadian Forces Artists Program (CFAP). Karole Marois was chosen to paint the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands for CFAP. The impact of that trip was so deep that five years later she is doing it again—creating an even bigger and bolder series to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the liberation.

Karen Bailey is passionate about drawing attention to the uncelebrated workers in countless jobs across this land. When she was chosen in 2007 as part of the Canadian Forces Artists Program (CFAP) she carried her vision into the hospital at Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan.

In an issue that focuses on Canadian youth and explores our role in teaching and encouraging them to understand military history and remembrance, it is important to acknowledge that in some countries, veterans include the very young. Those kids carry the burden of war both as victim and perpetrator, and Canadian photographer Robert Semeniuk has witnessed that cost first-hand. His powerful images rank with some of the most affecting war art of our time. There is an odd similarity in the faces of his young subjects; a stillness, and that want of emotion, combined with such gritty subject matter, is [...]

The Flanders poppy has been the most recognized symbol of remembrance for the last 90 years, and so one would expect to find the scarlet flower proliferating in the over 13,000 artworks in the collection of the Canadian War Museum. Instead, images of the poppy are surprisingly rare. Perhaps Canadian artists were not present when the poppies bloomed like blood on the battlefields after the First and Second World Wars, or perhaps the flower’s significance was not broadly understood until the wars ended. But if you look, you will find it flowering in a dozen works or so, and in a [...]

Canada has sent thousands of soldiers and a number of artists to war, and both roles have remained distinct and perhaps opposite in nature. Soldiers are trained, as best as they can be, for the grim environment of war, but the artist is in alien territory trying to record his surroundings with sensitivity and nuance—a setting he has little training for. The two vocations are disconnected, yet Will Ogilvie excelled at both. He endured years of wartime service on battlefields and simultaneously produced watercolours that stand among the best in this country. Born at Stutterheim, South Africa, in March 1901, Ogilvie [...]

Born in 1925 at Winnipeg, Tom Bjarnason was the last of eight children. His love affair with airplanes began the moment he got close enough to touch one. He remembers being six or seven years old—walking for hours to get to Stevenson Field, now the location of Winnipeg James Armstrong Richardson International Airport. “I could see these airplanes…sitting right there, and I was touching the fabric. It was a thrill I never, ever got over.” For years Bjarnason had dreamed of becoming a pilot, but a vision problem in his right eye ensured his dream would never come to pass. He [...]