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C.R.W.Nevinson
(1889 - 1946)
C.R.W.Nevinson joined the Red Cross in 1914 and went straight to
the war front. After a period of ambulance work, he developed what
was called 'rheumatism' and returned to the United Kingdom where
he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps (also known as Rob All
My Comrades or Rats after Mouldy Cheese ) at the 3rd London General
Hospital at Wandsworth. Once there, he contributed to The
Gazette which was an ambitious and amusing magazine sent
monthly to everybody there. The standard of prose and drawing was
high - many of the staff and patients being artists and journalists.
Here is Nevinson marked on the group photograph published in October
1917 of The Chain Gang, a "squad of men working on the grounds".
Here are the images Nevinson contributed after he had left the Hospital
to the three volumes of its magazine. The Gazette ,
June 1916 p.243, gives details of his stays at Wandsworth; :Mr.
- formerly Private - C.R.W.Nevinson sends a memento of his sojourn
here in the shape of a Futurist reminiscence of the audience at
a concert in our Recreation Room (p.237 and beneath here). Mr.Nevinson
has, as it were, seen these audiences from both points of view,
both as a member of the staff and a patient, for he had the unusual
experience first as working as an orderly here and then being himself
an inmate of one of the wards." All pages of The Gazette measure
13 x 20 cms. March
1917 p.162
TEMPERATURE 102' 4 image measures 9 X 10 cms
Oct 1915, p.20 untitled but at the foot of an article on 'Bungalow
Town' an ad hoc collection of walkways and buildings put up on Wandsworth
common and land attached to the main hospital; image 6.5 x 10.5
Nov 1915, p.30 Night Arrival of Walking Wounded , 8.5 x 10cms, attached
to an article on The Captives Home-Coming, a group of exchanged
prisoners of war arriving in Red Cross wagons and ambulances at
Wandsworth from the Station .
Feb.1916. p.115 A Futurist's Impression , 10 x 16.7 cms. A view
of The Receiving Hall . not attached to a particular article. Whole
page illustration. In April 1916, an article describes The Receiving
Hall, " On the table at the far end stands a great tank of
steaming cocoa and an array of cups. Orderlies are bringing in piles
of bundles of'blues'; others are ready with string and labels and
vast volumes in which the newcomers' belongings may be listed before
they are taken to the pack store."
April 1916, p.179, image measuring 9 x 10cms; The Driver of the
Ambulance , attached to an article on An Intake of the Wounded.
The Ambulances collected the wounded from the station at Wandsworth
and drove slowly over to the Hospital. An article in this issue
describes the arrival of the ambulances at night, " The orderlies'
ranks stiffen : the chat ceases : cigarettes are thrown away. The
first ambulance has passed through the gates and is gliding up the
drive. .."
June 1916, p.237, 10.5 x 10.5 cms. At the Concert. A Comic Song
.
He
also sent them a drawing after an image originally created at Wandsworth.
The Sprucers.
The images are interesting in that they make subtle allowances for
the magazines' readers - with fewer Futurist abstractions and more
identifiable objects which his readers would have been familiar.
Malcolm Arbuthnot's photographic portait of Nevinson in stylish
war garb appeared in The Gazette , a and also in
national periodicals such as The Graphic and Vogue.
The
Gazette March 1917 describes him as "late of this unit"
Other artists who contributed to The Gazette include;
J.H.Dowd, the Punch artist (who was an orderly) R.B.Ogle and H.M.Bateman.
READING...
exhib.catal.C.R.W.Nevinson,
Retrospective ,
Kettle's Yard, Cambridge 1988-9
Richard Cork Vorticism and Abstract Art in the First Machine
Age, Gordon Fraser, London, 1976, Volume 2. "Synthesis
and Decline". |
