B.
A date to remember
Behind the scenes
At 11.11.11 on 11.11.11, the time and date will be a perfect same-numbered palindrome, reading the same backwards as forwards, an event which can only happen on one day every 100 years.
Laurence Aberhart War memorial, Balclutha (from the Portfolio View) 1980. photograph. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery, purchased 1992.
If historical, rather than numerical, significance is more your thing, it's also Remembrance Day (also known as Armistice or Veteran's Day) a memorial day observed in many countries to honour the members of their armed forces who have died in the line of duty since World War I. It is observed on 11 November to recall the official end of World War I "at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month" of 1918 with the German signing of the Armistice.
The red poppy, which bloomed across some of the worst battlefields of Flanders in World War I, has become a symbol of Remembrance Day due to the poem 'In Flanders Fields' by Canadian physician and Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae:
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
Alfred Bentley Back Lines On The Western Front. Etching. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery. Sir Joseph Kinsey bequest.
Archibald Nicoll Becordel AD 1916 1930. Oil on canvas board. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery. Purchased 1996.
Gunner Archibald Nicoll painted this picture of the ruins of Becordel, a village near Albert, France, which the New Zealand Division passed through on its way to the front in 1916.
Related
Collection
Archibald Nicoll Becordel AD 1916
The French village of Becordel was an important point behind the British front lines during the Battle of the Somme between July and November 1916. Protected by its geography, Becordel served as an artillery depot, advanced dressing station and resting area for troops moving back and forth from the front lines. The Somme was one of most bitterly fought battles of World War I, with over a million casualties from both sides during almost five months of fighting. It was here that Canterbury artist Archibald Nicoll, serving with the 4th Reinforcements of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, was severely wounded in action on 24 September 1916. The bones in his right leg were so badly shattered that it had to be amputated at the thigh. Nicoll returned to New Zealand in 1918 and was appointed director of the Canterbury College School of Art in 1920. He followed his ambition to become a professional painter and painted many notable Canterbury landscapes throughout his career. Becordel AD 1916 was painted in 1930 from sketches he had made alongside the New Zealand horse lines at Becordel some fourteen years earlier.
(ANZAC Day, 2023)
Collection
Laurence Aberhart View
View is an album of fifteen photographs. For the exhibition Picturing the Peninsula (21 April - 22 July 2007), the album was opened to display the photograph Lyttelton Heads, Lyttelton. It was displayed with this label:
Concrete gun emplacements are scattered around Lyttelton Harbour, remnants of past threats to the Harbour’s security. The harbour has been fortified on numerous occasions in the past including the perceived Russian threat in 1885 and the Japanese threat during World War II. Aberhart’s sweeping view from the inner harbour incorporates the gun slit of the fortification as a dramatic framing device on the scene. The black edges contrast jarringly with the softer tones of the harbour and surrounding hills.
Aberhart began his photographic career in the late 1960s and taught photography at the Canterbury University School of Fine Arts from 1977 to 1981. He lived and worked in Lyttelton through the 1970s and early 1980s.