Will Longstaff
William Frederick Longstaff (25 December 1879 – 1 July 1953)
Birth and education
Born in
Career and the First World War
Upon returning to Australia, Longstaff continued to paint and teach art. He enlisted in the
Post-war
After the war, Longstaff continued his art, turning many of his sketches into paintings. Even after leaving the military, he remained in England, eventually settling in Sussex. Beginning the late-1920s, he made return trips to the battlefields of Belgium and France and painted haunting images in a spiritualist style. Among these later works is Menin Gate at Midnight (1927), arguably his most famous, which depicts the ghostly figures of soldiers marching past the monument.[3] The painting toured Australia in 1928–29. It was viewed by record crowds.[4]
The painting is housed in the Australian War Memorial, Canberra. In December 2000 Menin Gate at Midnight left the War Memorial on loan to the National Gallery of Australia, the first time it had left the memorial since its installation there in 1941.
Death
He died in 1953.
Select works
- 8 August 1918, 1918–19
- Breaking the Hindenburg Line, 1918–19
- Menin Gate at Midnight (Ghosts of Menin Gate), 1927
- Immortal shrine (Eternal silence), 1928
- The rearguard (The spirit of ANZAC), 1928[5]
- Ghosts of Vimy Ridge (Canadian National Vimy Memorial), 1931
- Carillon, 1932
- Drake's Drum, 1940
- The Battle of El Alamein, 1942 (National Army Museum), 1942[6]
- Portrait of Ivy Tresmand, in MuseuMAfricA, Johannesburg, South Africa[7]
- Portrait of
See also
References
- ^ Australian Dictionary of Biography
- ^ 'Camofleur', "Musketeers of Brush and Pencil with the A.I.F.: Art Under Fire: The Battlefield as Studio", The (Melbourne) Herald, (1 February 1919), p. 4.
- OCLC 248475377. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
- ^ Gray, Anna. "War Artists", National Gallery of Australia; AWM, First World War, official artists
- ^ "LOT 444W: WILLIAM FRANCIS (Will) Longstaff (Australian, 1879–1953) 'The rearguard (The spirit of ANZAC)'". Bonhams. 25 June 2010. Retrieved 18 March 2020.
- ^ "The Battle of El Alamein, (23rd October - 4 November), 1942 - Online Collection - National Army Museum, London". nam.ac.uk. 4 October 2012. Archived from the original on 17 March 2016. Retrieved 14 November 2022.
- ^ Africana Notes and News, vol. 23 (1978) p. 281
- ^ Powell, Alan, "Gilruth, John Anderson (1871–1937)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, retrieved 14 November 2022