Etcher, draughtsman and painter. He was born in Glasgow in 1876, the
son of a journalist. He is best known for his work as official artist
on the Western Front during the First World War, where he worked quickly
in pencil and chalk to produce haunting images, many of which were
then printed by the War Office as lithographs on his return home.
His early training as an architect led to a fascination for observing
buildings:
His special province was the rendering
of great masses of buildings under construction or demolition, with
all the attendant paraphernalia, in such a manner that out of superficial
chaos there emerged a beautiful and ordered design. (quoted in Harries:
10).
Far from being a mere topographer,
his images are amongst the most evocative of the War. Bone was both
long and short sighted at the same time, which in part explains his
meticulous detail and he was often dubbed 'the Scottish Piranesi.'
These lithographs from the series
titled War Drawings, printed in a variety of hues, were issued by
authority of the War Office in 1917 as a limited luxury edition of
signed proofs. Each is signed in pencil by the artist, signed in the
stone and stamped with his monogram. Of exceptional quality, they
capture the essence of Muirhead Bone's style at its very best. The
subjects range from tin-hatted infantrymen busily building shelters
to beautiful, yet desolate, ruins in the French countryside.
References: Meiron and Susie Harries, The War Artists. British
Official War Art of the Twentieth Century, 1983.
