Oil paint on canvas
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/russell-drysdale-1033" aria-label="More by Russell Drysdale" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Russell Drysdale</a>
War Memorial
Purchased 1951
architecture
Australia
birth to death
building - non-specific
contrast
countries and continents
desert
emotions, concepts and ideas
landscape
memorial
monuments
places
road
society
statue
townscapes / man-made features
universal concepts
painting oil paint canvas
War Memorial
support: 660 × 1016 mm
Purchased 1951
<strong>Russell Drysdale</strong> born 1912 [- 1981]
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<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/drysdale-war-memorial-n05986" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05986</span></a> <strong>War Memorial</strong> 1950
</p><p>
Inscribed 'Russell Drysdale' b.r.<br/>
Oil on canvas, 26 x 40 (66 x 102)<br/>
Purchased from the artist through the Leicester Galleries (Knapping Fund) 1951<br/>
<em>Exh:</em> <em>Russell Drysdale</em>, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, August 1950 (9); <em>Russell Drysdale</em>, Leicester Galleries, London, December 1950 (12)<br/>
<em>Lit:</em> Joseph Burke, <em>The Paintings of Russell Drysdale</em> (Sydney n.d.), pp.14, 52 (dated 1950)<br/>
<em>Repr:</em> <em>Illustrated London News</em>, CCXVII, 1950, p.1005; Geoffrey Dutton, <em>Russell Drysdale</em> (London 1964), pl.59 (dated 1950)
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The artist wrote on 11 August 1956 that '"War Memorial" was painted in 1949 in Sydney. The subject is of no particular township but rather is representative of the small bush community with its cheap, <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/cast" title="Glossary definition for 'Cast'"><span>cast</span></a> figure (there must be hundreds of them) looking completely unreal and out of key'. However it appears in his own list of his <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>paintings</span></a> and their owners compiled in 1951 (published in Burke, op. cit.) as a work of 1950.
</p><p>
<strong>Published in:</strong><br/>
Ronald Alley, <em>Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists</em>, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, p.179, reproduced p.179
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Catalogue entry
2004-09-14T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
architecture Australia birth to death building - non-specific contrast countries and continents desert emotions, concepts and ideas landscape memorial monuments places road society statue townscapes / man-made features universal concepts