25 by 30in. (63.5 by 76.2cm)

Title: LONDON HOSPITAL, 1914
Frame size: 30 by 35in. (76.2 by 88.9cm)
Note: When Lavery's large retrospective exhibition at the Grosvenor Galleries drew to a close in the summer of 1914, the artist and his wife set off for a tour of Ireland in the knowledge that tensions were increasing in Europe. They were in Dublin when war was declared on 4 August, but delayed their return in order to visit the north coast. When they got back to London, St James's Park had been requisitioned as a military camp and the city was in uproar. As weeks went by, with the rout of Belgium and the arrival of 250,000 refugees, early euphoria and predictions of a swift victory evaporated. Lavery quickly realized that his best way to support the war effort was through his work, but Government restrictions blocked his early ambitions to equip a motor-bus and drive to the Western Front. So, in March 1915 he arranged to paint the wounded at London Hospital. The 'London' had been the first hospital to receive casualties in the early weeks of the war. By the end of the month the painter was installed in the hospital's Charlotte Ward, observing Miss Frances Grace Coombe - affectionately referred to as 'Sister Charlotte' - attending a wounded soldier. At least two general views of the ward were painted alongside the present canvas, and these became the source material from which Wounded, London Hospital, 1915, the Dundee canvas, was painted at the artist's studio in Cromwell Place (fig 1&2) (2). The present version is unique in indicating both setting and central motif. It also tells us that the actual soldier only became Scots belatedly in the exhibited canvas. The finished picture was shown at the Royal Academy in 1915 where one critic described it as 'the most remarkable achievement' in an exhibition that was widely criticized for failing to come to grips with what was described as an unprecedented 'struggle for existence' (3). Lady Cynthia Asquith, who confirmed that the Academy seemed 'unaffected by cataclysm', saw Wounded: London Hospital as one of the very few authentic attempts to address the effects of war, noting its '… very good atmosphere', and that 'it almost made one smell the antiseptics' (4). It was immediately popular with the wider public and those soldiers able to visit the show tended to congregate in front of it (5). By the time the large version arrived in its permanent home in Dundee at the beginning of 1917, the title had been changed to The First Wounded, London Hospital, 1914, even though as MP and RHR Park point out, over 2000 soldiers are likely to have been treated around the time the picture was actually being painted. None of this however, detracts from the documentary character of the present study. Lavery for instance, is likely to have included the wounded soldier with a foot sling simply because he was there at the time. Foot injuries following the severe winter of 1914-5, when many infantrymen suffered frostbite and trench fever was common. This figure was however, excluded from the final work, while the table containing bowls, bottles and dressings was transformed into a metal trolley. Perhaps to underwrite the circumstantial authenticity of the scene, the artist also chose to identify his principal soldier as a Gordon Highlander in the Dundee version. Lavery continued to report on the war, also painting the wounded of St George's Hospital who, on good days, with their nurses, took the air in Hyde Park. He also saw the death tolls rise when the Ulster and Munster Divisions were slaughtered on the banks of the Somme in July 1916. On the first anniversary of that terrible offensive, a series of fund-raising activities were organized throughout Ulster, on what was named 'Forget-Me-Not' Day, 29 June 1917. The occasion was marked in London by a Garden Fete at Hampden House in Green Street, home of the Duke of Abercorn on 4 July to which the present study was generously donated (6). It is not known if the Laverys attended this event, opened by Sir Edward Carson and Lady Londonderry. (7)Shortly thereafter, Lavery received his commission as an Official War Artist and was off to paint Naval operations, including the North Sea convoys which he observed from armed airships. Intrepid though this was, he considered that in avoiding the Western Front, his war experience was limited. However, as the present work indicates, no one in 1915 was more committed than he to reporting on the great 'struggle for existence', and those who suffered in its wake - and while others re-imagined Napoleonic or Crimean battle scenes confected in khaki and grey, he stood out for documentary authenticity. In its central motif , there is no better sense of human vulnerability than in the pale exposed flesh of the young soldier addressed with Samaritan tenderness by Sister Coombe. The effects of war can only be truly seen to be believed when recorded with sympathy by the consummate artist-reporter. Kenneth McConkey 1. A label on the frame relates to an earlier exhibit at the Carnegie International Exhibition in Pittsburgh, and not the present work. Lavery clearly decided to re-use this original frame when the present picture was donated to the Ulster Division Fete. A label on the stretcher refers to a subsequent sale by William Rodman & Co of Belfast. A further inscription relates to subsequent ownership. 2. The picture was to be reproduced in colour by the Fine Art Society and placed on sale for the benefit of the hospital. See MP Park and RHR Park, 'Art in Wartime: The First Wounded, London Hospital, August 1914', Medical Humanities, vol 37, no. 1, June 2011, p. 23-26; also Kenneth McConkey, John Lavery, A Painter and his World, 2010 (Atelier Books), pp. 125-7. As Park and Park point out, this large canvas was originally entitled Wounded, London Hospital, 1915 when shown at the Academy, and given that it was being painted at the time of the Academy submission deadline, it could not represent the first wounded soldiers who arrived at the London Hospital shortly after the outbreak of war. 3. Anon 'The Royal Academy Exhibition, 1915', The Studio, vol 65, 1915, p. 25. 4. Lady Cynthia Asquith, with a foreword by LP Hartley, Diaries, 1915-1918, 1968 (Hutchinson), p. 43, (entry for 15 June 1915). 5. Anon, 'Popular Academy Pictures - The First Public Day', The Times, 4 May 1915, p. 11. Such was its popularity that prints were made by the Fine Art Society, and sold in aid of the hospital, while the present work was illustrated in The Sphere. 6. Lavery actually gave the picture to his old friend Mrs Kerr Smiley of Drumalis, with the intention that it be raffled for funds to support the wounded; see 'By Private Wire', Belfast Newsletter, 3 July 1917, p. 5. The garden fete, scheduled for a few days earlier, had to be transferred indoors due to bad weather. 7. 'The Ulster Fete in London', Londonderry Sentinel, 5 July 1917, p. 2. Sir Edward Carson, whose portrait Lavery had recently painted along with that of John Redmond, delivered the opening speech. Imperialist sentiments prevailed. Carson used the occasion to praise his 'own boys' in their 'rush to the colours', while Lady Londonderry spoke of the Ulster Division's bravery as 'one more shot for the honour of Ulster and the Empire'. The amount raised on behalf of Lady Carson's fund 'to provide gifts for the sick, wounded and prisoners of war from the Ulster Division' was over £1000.

Excellent condition.

oil on canvas

signed lower right; signed, titled, dated and with William Rodman & Co. label on reverse