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This activity relates to Level 6, National Profiles, SOSE. Nora Heysen was the first female Official War Artist. Prior to her appointment, the documentation of war through film, photography and painting, was a purely male domain. Women were considered ill-equipped for the rigours of life at the front. The emergence of women as a vital cog in the war machine changed this bias. By the Second World War, women were nurses, cooks, drivers, munition and factory workers, and an integral part of the war effort. Heysen was the first of three women to be appointed as Official War Artists during the Second World War. The other two were Sybill Craig and Stella Bowen. Their appointment was primarily to record the activities of women in the war effort and other subjects seen to be appropriate. Most of these images are now housed in the Australian War Memorial collections to educate future generations about the realities of war. This tradition continues. Even with the advances in technology today, artists are still sent to record a more personal version of events. Today, women are involved in almost every aspect of military service. In the recent East Timor conflict, one of the OWAs sent to record the conflict was Wendy Sharpe. Practical work Allow students to look at the Australian War Memorial website. http://www.awm.gov.au/database/ This will allow them to search the art and photography databases that contain work by Nora Heysen, her contemporaries Stella Bowen and Sybill Craig, and modern views by Wendy Sharpe. Ask students to browse through the database looking at Heysen's, Bowen's and Craigs work and make a checklist of topics covered in their work. Checklist could include: Women working (drivers, cooks,
nurses, etc) Ask students to look at Wendy Sharpes work on the database (she also took photographs while in East Timor, so students should look at the photography database as well). Ask them to apply the same checklist to her work. Is there much difference in
the results? Essay Official War Artists are given guidelines regarding what they are to record. Nora Heysen was reprimanded on several occasions for failing to comply with these guidelines. Using the results gathered in the checklist as a guide, and referring to Nora Heysen, Stella Bowen and Wendy Sharpe, discuss the following question. Today, female Official War Artists are given a great deal more artistic freedom. This allows the general public a more balanced view of the conflicts portrayed. You are welcome to agree or disagree with this statement, but must back up your answer with logical arguments. |