painting, Cookhouse, Witley Camp
Report a Mistake- Object Number 19710261-0007
- Event 1914-1919 First World War
- Affiliation --
- Artist / Maker / Manufacturer Airy, Anna
- Date Made 1918
- Place of Use Continent - North America, Country - Canada
- Category Communication artifacts
- Sub-category Art
- Department Art and Memorials
- Museum CWM
- Earliest 1918/01/01
- Latest 1918/12/31
- Medium oil
- Support canvas
- Materials Not applicable
- Service Component Canadian Expeditionary Force
- Unit 156th Canadian Infantry Battalion
- Measurements Height 303.5 cm, Width 365.0 cm, Depth 3.6 cm
- Caption Cookhouse, Witley Camp, 1918
- Additional Information One museum noted the following information on Anna Airy, a well-known British artist, which may explain why she was one of the few women painters employed during the war. "In the early years of the century she penetrated into Thames-side haunts of vice and crime in search of human nature in the raw. She has witnessed prize-fights without gloves, and cock-fights. She was present in an underground gambling den when murder was committed, and only escaped the police cordon by the wit of a cardsharper friend." In 1984, Lee Murray, the Canadian War Museum's chief curator, quaintly described Cookhouse, Whitley Camp: "Here is portrayed an amusing scene of army life in a Reserve camp. The painting is not without that touch of humour which is rarely absent from the artist's work, as may be noted by the action of the figure in the foreground. The interior is of a regional cook-house at Witley Camp, Surrey, in 1917. At the time the 156th Canadian Infantry Battalion was at the training camp."