MILITARY COMMEMORATIVE PRINT
1990A print of a painting of soldiers in trenches. Text on the lower left-hand side of the border reads [Frank Crozier Trench life at Anzac] and on the lower right-hand side reads [Australian War Memorial (2189)].
There is a gold coloured plaque centralised on the lower edge reads [PRESENTED BY / THE RETURNED SERVICES LEAGUE ARMADALE SUB-BRANCH / TO COMMEMORATE THE 75TH ANNIVERSARY OF GALLIPOLI / ANZAC DAY _ 1990 _].
Has number 6 written on the back.
The now Returned & Services League (R.S.L.) was initially called the Returned Sailors and Soldiers Imperial League of Australia (R.S.S.I.L.A.). It was formed nationally by World War 1 veterans in 1916 to provide support for veterans returned from military service. By 1919 or 1920 a sub-branch was formed in Armadale.
In 1990 the Armadale branch of the R.S.L donated a series of prints of paintings from the 1915 ANZAC campaign to the City of Armadale to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Gallipoli landing.
This is a print of Frank Crozier's painting 'Trench Life at ANZAC'. Finished in 1923 the painting depicts Australian forces in a trench at Gallipoli during enemy shelling. The scene shows soldiers carrying a wounded soldier on a stretcher while other soldiers, some in uniform, others without their shirts take cover in the trench.
Frank Crozier (1883-1948) studied at at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School in 1907. In 1915 he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Forces and served with the 22nd Battalion in Egypt and at Gallipoli. It was while in Gallipoli Frank was approached by journalist C.E. W. Bean to provide illustrations for the 'ANZAC Book', a collection of illustrations, short stories and poems relating to the soldiers and the campaign. Bean was impressed with Crozier's skills and in 1918 when he was appointed the official military historian Bean was involved in the commissioning of official war artists, Bean recommended Crozier. Crozier, who after serving in France in 1917 had been transferred to the AIF Administrative Headquarters in London and was training to be a camouflage artist when in September 1918 he was appointed as an official war artist. It is believed that it is because he was one of the few war artists who had experienced heavy fighting, at Gallipoli and Pozieres, which influenced his artistic choices of often painting the human dimension of warfare.
Crozier painted a number of official war paintings which are part of the Australian War Memorial Collection. His tenure as an official war artist finished in June 1920. He would go on to make a successful living as a farm scene and landscape painter in Victoria. During World War II he wormed in a munitions factory in Maribyrong, Victoria.
(source https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/P10676272)
