Fred A. Farrell :
Glasgow's war artist /
Joanna Meacock [and 3 others].
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| Summary: | Frederick Arthur Farrell (1882-1935) came from a distinguished Glasgow family. He initially studied civil engineering, and as an artist was self-taught, although he owes a debt to the advice and example of Muirhead Bone. By the outbreak of World War I he was developing a reputation as an up-and-coming etcher and watercolourist of portraits and topographical subjects. He enlisted as a sapper, or military engineer, with the Royal Engineers Railway Troops Depot but was discharged from the Army due to ill health. In December 1916, Farrell returned to the Front as a war artist, attached for three weeks to the 15th, 16th and 17th Highland Light Infantry in Flanders. In November 1917 he was in France, attached for two months to the staff of the 51st (Highland) Division. In between, authorized by the Minister of Munitions and Admiralty, and supported by Glasgow's Lord Provost, Farrell drew the heroic home effort of women in Glasgow's munitions factories, shipyards and engineering works. As a former soldier, Farrell's sketches and watercolours of the Front powerfully offer a landscape filtered through personal experience and emotion. Battle scenes and strategic deliberations are reconstructed, informed by first-hand accounts. Many include portraits of actual soldiers. There are poignant images of graves, devastated landscapes and destroyed churches. However, there are also scenes of reconstruction and renewed activity amid the desolation. He is at his most dynamic in his drawings of the munitions factories which are full of noise, light and movement. In these there is a sense of joy and energy in industry and machinery, in patterning and design. The commission Farrell received from the Corporation of Glasgow to produce 50 drawings of the front line and munitions factories in the city to record the war for posterity was extraordinary. He was unique in being the only war artist to be commissioned by a city rather than by the government, Imperial War Museum or armed forces. Glasgow was one of the first cities to recognize the importance of creating such a memorial, rather than just creating images for propaganda purposes. |
| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published / Created: |
[Glasgow] :
Glasgow Museums in association with Philip Wilson Publishers,
2014.
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| Notes: | "This catalogue is published to accompany the Exhibition Fred A. Farrell - Glasgow's War Artist: from Home Front to Front Line in WWI, at the Popele's Palace, Glasgow, 30 may - 23 November 2014"--Page 4. Includes bibliographical references. Physical description: 79 pages : color illustrations, color map ; 22 cm more |
| ISBN: | 1781300275 9781781300275 |
Table of Contents:
Preface / Duncan Dornan
Introduction : collecting World War I / Joanna Meacock
Map of the Western Front
Fred A. Farrell : "a fitting official and pictorial history of the war" / Joanna Meacock
The Home Front : "while it was not ours to fight
we worked" / Fiona Hayes
Fred A. Farrell : "truthful representations of the character and aspect of modern war" / Alan Greenlees
Catalogue of Fred A. Farrell's works / Joanna Meacock and Mark Roberts
Appendix : archival sources related to Fred A. Farrell
Preface / Duncan Dornan
Introduction : collecting World War I / Joanna Meacock
Map of the Western Front
Fred A. Farrell : "a fitting official and pictorial history of the war" / Joanna Meacock
The Home Front : "while it was not ours to fight
we worked" / Fiona Hayes
Fred A. Farrell : "truthful representations of the character and aspect of modern war" / Alan Greenlees
Catalogue of Fred A. Farrell's works / Joanna Meacock and Mark Roberts
Appendix : archival sources related to Fred A. Farrell
