Irish Troops in the Judaean Hills Surprised By A Turkish Bombardment, 1919

image: An elevated viewpoint of a scene showing an encampment under bombardment at an hour before evening 'stand to'. Dense clouds of smoke drift across the scene from exploding shells. Soldiers run and attempt to shelter from the bombardment, while two soldiers carry a wounded soldier in the lower right of the composition.

One of a series of paintings commissioned by the British War Memorial Committee set up by the Ministry of Information early in 1918. The Committee developed a scheme to build a ‘Great memorial gallery’ devoted to ‘fighting subjects, home subjects and the war at sea and in the air’. The centre of the scheme was to be a coherent series of paintings based on the dimensions of Uccello’s ‘Battle of San Romano’ in the National Gallery (72 x 125 inches), this size being considered suitable for a commemorative battle painting. While the commissions included some of the most avant-garde British artists of the time, the BWMC advisors saw the scheme as firmly within the tradition of European art commissioning, looking to models from the Renaissance. It was intended that both the art and the setting would celebrate national ideals of heroism and sacrifice. However, the Hall of Remembrance was never completed and the collection was given to the Imperial War Museum. Henry Lamb was serving in the Egyptian Expeditionary Force when he was approached by the Committee in February 1918. He was unable to start work on the painting until after he demobbed in March 1919.

Ministry of Information commission Scheme 1. Commission administration transferred to Imperial War Museum

Note: This artwork was relocated in August 1939 to a less vulnerable site outside London when the museum activated its evacuation plan.