Item #121866 Australia at War. A Winter Record made by Will Dyson on the Somme and at Ypres during the Campaigns of 1916 and 1917. With an Introduction by G.K. Chesterton. [Australia at War. Drawings at the Front by Lieut. Will Dyson, Official Artist AIF (cover title)]. Lieutenant Will DYSON.

DYSON, Lieutenant Will

Australia at War. A Winter Record made by Will Dyson on the Somme and at Ypres during the Campaigns of 1916 and 1917. With an Introduction by G.K. Chesterton. [Australia at War. Drawings at the Front by Lieut. Will Dyson, Official Artist AIF (cover title)]

London, Cecil Palmer and Hayward, 1918.

Large quarto, 52 pages with a pictorial dedication page plus 20 full-page illustrations.

Pictorial card covers; tiny bump near the tail of the spine; essentially a fine copy.

William Henry Dyson (1880-1938) was commissioned by the Commonwealth in December 1916 'as the first Australian war artist. While living with the Australian soldiers on the Western Front, Lieutenant Dyson was twice wounded but returned to continue producing his compassionate drawings of humanity under fire. A collection of these water-colour wash and crayon drawings, each with Dyson's interpretative text' constitutes this book. By all accounts the winter of 1916-17 was the harshest in the region in decades, and the drawings reflect 'more the misery and the depression of the material conditions of these campaigns than it does any of their exaltations or their cheerfulness.... but it is open to doubt whether we are behaving generously in demanding that the soldier who is saving the world for us should provide us with a fund of light entertainment while doing it' (Artist's Note). Dornbusch 225; Fielding and O'Neill, page 245.