War Drawings. Part I - Part VI. [All Published]
Bone, Muirhead
London. Published by Authority of the War Office by Country Life Ltd. ... and George Newnes, Ltd. 1917–1918
Sold
An excellent unsophisticated example of the deluxe edition of War Drawings by Muirhead Bone, the first official British War Artist.
From the edition de luxe of 'signed proofs' limited to 50 copies with limitation tickets to the front pastedown of each volume portfolio and with each plate signed in pencil by Bone and with the artist's blindstamp.
On July 12th, 1916, Muirhead Bone was appointed to the position of first official British War Artist with the rank of 2nd Lieutenant, a salary of £500 and strictures on what he was to draw, paint or depict. Answerable to a department of the Foreign Office in London and attached to the Intelligence division of General Headquarters, Bone had a high level security clearance and was permitted to travel as he saw fit in the pursuit of his imagery, his low rank, however, aroused curiosity at the very least and it has been suggested that on at least one occasion he was arrested. For the next two years, Bone, working under difficult conditions and often under fire produced a very substantial body of work, sketching usually in a notebook of impressions, many of which were worked up at a later time and in better conditions. The work was published as the serial 'The Western Front: Drawings by Muirhead Bone' and the 'planned edition de luxe', 'a series of folios of ten selected drawings, reproduced on a larger scale' as the present work, 'War Drawings'.
'Muirhead was told not to draw dead bodies or troops being bayoneted or shot. He had not to get in the way of manoeuvres or give away information that could be of use to the enemy. All his drawings and letters home had to be passed by the censor. He could show the way soldiers had to live, the destruction, the material and the armaments that caused destruction. Vainglorious images were not required, but a truthful record of the Western Front would how the destruction caused by the German invasion and the measures used to halt it.' (Sylvester Bone).
War Drawings is scarce with COPAC reporting 6 copies (at the British Library, Tate, National Library of Scotland, Trinity College Dublin and Oxford and Cambridge only); the Imperial War Museum appears to have an incomplete copy.
[see 'Sir Muirhead Bone - Artist and Patron' by Sylvester Bone, London, 2009].
From the edition de luxe of 'signed proofs' limited to 50 copies with limitation tickets to the front pastedown of each volume portfolio and with each plate signed in pencil by Bone and with the artist's blindstamp.
On July 12th, 1916, Muirhead Bone was appointed to the position of first official British War Artist with the rank of 2nd Lieutenant, a salary of £500 and strictures on what he was to draw, paint or depict. Answerable to a department of the Foreign Office in London and attached to the Intelligence division of General Headquarters, Bone had a high level security clearance and was permitted to travel as he saw fit in the pursuit of his imagery, his low rank, however, aroused curiosity at the very least and it has been suggested that on at least one occasion he was arrested. For the next two years, Bone, working under difficult conditions and often under fire produced a very substantial body of work, sketching usually in a notebook of impressions, many of which were worked up at a later time and in better conditions. The work was published as the serial 'The Western Front: Drawings by Muirhead Bone' and the 'planned edition de luxe', 'a series of folios of ten selected drawings, reproduced on a larger scale' as the present work, 'War Drawings'.
'Muirhead was told not to draw dead bodies or troops being bayoneted or shot. He had not to get in the way of manoeuvres or give away information that could be of use to the enemy. All his drawings and letters home had to be passed by the censor. He could show the way soldiers had to live, the destruction, the material and the armaments that caused destruction. Vainglorious images were not required, but a truthful record of the Western Front would how the destruction caused by the German invasion and the measures used to halt it.' (Sylvester Bone).
War Drawings is scarce with COPAC reporting 6 copies (at the British Library, Tate, National Library of Scotland, Trinity College Dublin and Oxford and Cambridge only); the Imperial War Museum appears to have an incomplete copy.
[see 'Sir Muirhead Bone - Artist and Patron' by Sylvester Bone, London, 2009].
6 parts in 2 vols. Large folio. (562 x 450 mm). Each part with leaf with title and list of contents recto and 10 lithograph plates each signed in pencil by Bone and with his blindstamp recto only, the plates numbered I - LX on contents leaves; various sheet sizes on various paper stocks after Bone's originals in various media; some small occasional creases and one or two minor tears to sheet edges but an excellent unsophisticated set with the part portfolios in excellent condition. Loose as issued in original publisher's blue or green paper-backed part wrappers each with printed titles to front covers in black, loose in two original cloth-backed card board portfolios with flaps and printed titles to front covers, additional cloth-backed portfolio with matching title for the whole series.
#46250
