Funds being raised for UNICEF
Ed Gray, our finest painter of cities and their people, has an exhibition opening soon where new works will be seen for the first time – an event that his ever-growing fanbase will be looking forward to, writes Michael Holland.
One that I can’t wait to see is ‘Remembrance, West Lane Memorial Rotherhithe’, a painting about the locals showing their respect to those that have fallen in war; a ceremony I attend every year as it is just yards away from where I was born.
Living even closer to the War Memorial was Corporal George Mitchell, a WWI soldier who lived at 21 West Lane and has been given a place in the artwork.
Over at Gray’s studio, he was putting the finishing touches to another new painting – ‘Triumph of Shoreditch’ – but I asked about the West Lane Memorial piece as that was closer to my heart:
‘Several years ago,’ began the artist, ‘I decided I should try to paint the people who gather at the war memorial in Rotherhithe for Remembrance Day. A lot of my work is about urban rituals and I’d been going for a while, and now our children were old enough to come along. I was trying to explain the reasons why we go, even though I was unsure myself. They were aware of the effects of global warfare from meeting refugees in their school, perhaps more than I ever was as a child… For me, attendance was a kind of ancestral worship at a ritual consisting of music, prayers, costumes, feathers and a totem as we collectively commemorated a past generation’s sacrifice. Lately, faced with conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, it seems certain to me that the perpetual cycle of war is part of what constitutes human existence.’
Tell me about the composition you decided on:
‘The painting became circular in construction, the faces are those I see in my community. War begins in boardrooms, arms deals and munitions factories, and then seeps out to our doorstep with communities and working people, families, the elderly, and children, trapped in the horror of destruction… In the face of increasing militarisation and calls for national service in the government and media, the painting really began to grip me. I shifted the composition to include members of my family – Our son, awkward and unsure in the foreground. It became a depiction of a kind of blessing, almost a coronation. As I painted I tried to imagine if I could ever leave my family and go and fight in a war in a foreign country. This question was even more poignant because it was the question my own grandfathers had asked themselves 110 years before when they left for the trenches.’
How did Corporal Mitchell end up as part of the work?
‘In my continuing search to understand the scene and the memorial site in West Lane, I discovered the story of Corporal George Mitchell, a WW1 soldier from a postcard he had sent home from the front. George had been given a leave of absence from the trenches in France to visit his dying father. His father, though, lived a little longer than expected, which meant George stayed more than his leave allowed; he hung on for the funeral.’
Returning to France late, Corporal Mitchell was demoted to the rank of Private for going AWOL, and was then killed just before Armistice Day in 1918.
As I was gathering my thoughts, Ed brought the painting out. I thought it had been sent off to the exhibition venue. I instantly recognised some of the people in it, the annual regulars and stalwarts of that sombre commemoration. Some I knew by name, some I knew from seeing them every year.
‘I painted George from a photo I found on the incredible Commonwealth War Graves Commission – “A Street Near You” website,’ he said before pointing the young soldier out. ‘He is alone in the crowd, the only one looking the viewer straight in the eye – watching us watching the scene.’
I was speechless while all that information struggled to settle; my mind fighting to process how an antique postcard, from a young man who was killed just before the end of a war created by the rich for the poor to fight, enhanced this painting over 100 years later. I thought of my nan, who lived very close at that time, and how she probably knew the family. I remember her telling of surviving WWII bombs in that very street, and I thought of Ed Gray’s children and their refugee friends who had fled from war. So many bad things coming together to make something beautiful.
‘Will there be prints that the public can buy?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘I’m selling a limited edition of 95 prints on paper in aid of UNICEF. £195 per print including delivery, with 75% (£145) of the total price going to UNICEF ‘
The Streetlife Serenade exhibition will show recognisable rituals and traditions of not just our wondrous city, but of cities all over the globe. Every place on every continent that Ed Gray has arrived in with his sketch pad could be in with a shout. Expect to see Tokyo, New York, Cape Town and Bangkok alongside some his greatest hits from London. He refused to tell me all of the artworks that made the final cut, but he said he had been busy collecting them from the current owners to hang in the East End gallery:
House of Annetta, 25 Princelet Street, Spitalfields, E1 6QH from July 4th – July 20th. Admission Free. Mon – Tues 11am – 5pm; Add – Sun 11am – 8pm.
Link to the War Memorial print(67cm x 60cm):
https://www.edgrayart.com/shop/remembrance-west-lane-war-memorial-rotherhithe/
