Footnotes

Provenance
The Artist, by whom donated to
Lady Dixon in aid of The Ulster Division Fete, 1917
With William Rodman & Co, Belfast
Malcolm Mercer and thence by descent to
Stanley Mercer
Sale; Phillips, London, 13 November 1984, lot 78
Sale; Christie's, London, 6 November 1992, lot 53, where acquired by the present owner
Private Collection, U.K.

Literature
'"Wounded" by John Lavery RA, Sold for a War Charity', The Sphere, 14 July 1917, p.viii (ill.)
Kenneth McConkey, John Lavery: A Painter and his World, Atelier Books, Edinburgh, 2010, pp.125, 231

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) was painted at the artist's studio in Cromwell Place. The present version is unique in indicating both setting and central motif.

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'. 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'. It was immediately popular with the wider public and those soldiers able to visit the show tended to congregate in front of it. By the time the picture 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 accuracy 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, were 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, Lavery also chose to identify his principal soldier as a Gordon Highlander.

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. It is likely that the Laverys attended this event, and 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.

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. The effects of war must be truly seen to be believed, and recorded with sympathy by the consummate artist-reporter.

We are grateful to Professor Kenneth McConkey for compiling this catalogue entry.