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Details
- Place where the work was made
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France
- Date
- 1917
- Media category
- Painting
- Materials used
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 63.4 x 76.2 cm stretcher; 82.7 x 95.0 x 5.0 cm frame
- Signature & date
Signed and dated l.r. corner, brown oil "LEIST ... 17".
- Credit
- Purchased 1934
- Location
- Not on display
- Accession number
- 843
- Copyright
- Artist information
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Fred Leist
Works in the collection
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About
Throughout the war, messenger pigeons played a vital role in communications. It is estimated over 100,000 served with the British Forces, their speed and endurance saving countless lives. Pigeons were kept in mobile lofts behind the front line, then taken to the trenches in wicker baskets when needed.
Fred Leist depicts a horse-drawn loft, set within the desolate landscape of the Western Front, with drifts of snow and bare tree trunks highlighting the harsh conditions. The broad strokes of white paint that swathe the foreground accentuate the silhouetted figures of the pigeon handler and the courier about to embark on his motorbike. The delicate, rose-tinted sky and relative stillness of the scene conveys a sense of calm, despite the looming danger of their mission.
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Places
Where the work was made
France
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Exhibition history
Shown in 2 exhibitions
150 years of Australian art (1938), National Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 27 Jan 1938–25 Apr 1938
Mad through the darkness: Australian artists and the Great War, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 25 Apr 2015–11 Oct 2015
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Bibliography
Referenced in 2 publications
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Lionel Lindsay, 150 years of Australian art, Sydney, 1938. cat.no. 204 [Gallery No. 3]
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Richard Travers, To paint a war: The lives of the Australian artists who painted the Great War, 1914-1918, Port Melbourne, 2017, 122 (colour illus.).
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