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Advanced Dressing Station in France

SHEPPERSON, Claude Allin (1867 - 1921)

Advanced Dressing Station in France - Claude Shepperson

Advanced Dressing Station in France - Claude Shepperson

Advanced Dressing Station in France

Date: 1917

Media: lithograph on paper

Acquired: 1919; Presented by Ministry of Information

Accession Number: NWM A 13200

Collection: The Great War: Britain's Efforts and Ideals

A doctor bends over his patient on a pallet bed in a dimly-lit tent, assisted by a nurse. A casualty would be taken here from the trenches by stretcher-bearers, where they could receive treatment and be prepared for transportation to a Casualty Clearing Station.  The tent ropes, creating diagonal lines across the image show Shepperson’s attention to detail as a graphic artist. 

These prints follow the journey of a wounded soldier from the Front Line, through treatment, to convalescence back at home.  The organisers initially asked the artist Henry Tonks (1867-1937), a surgeon before becoming an artist, to respond to the work of the medical services.  However, Tonks found the paper supplied ‘entirely unsympathetic’for drawing and declined.  Shepperson was later commissioned for the subject and produced a very well received series.    

Shepperson was born in Beckenham, Kent, and was a successful water-colourist, pen and ink artist, illustrator and lithographer. Having given up law he studied art in Paris and London. He is well-known for his humorous drawings contributed to the Punch magazine between 1905 and 1920.

This work forms part of the portfolio The Great War: Britain's Efforts and Ideals, a series of 66 lithographic prints commissioned by the Ministry of Information in 1917. The series provide a broad and fascinating representation of Britain’s war objectives, military activities and effort on the Home Front.
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