A Man (2006)
after Hilda Rix Nicholas' "A Man"

A Man 2006
Oil on canvas

2008
"One of the aims of my project was to create homages to the work of previous artists. Hilda Rix was a renowned Australian artist who was living in France at the outbreak of World War One. With the Germans advancing on Etaples, the town in which she had her studio, she was advised to evacuate to somewhere safer immediately. Heading the advice, she abandoned all her artwork and with her widowed mother and sister hastily left France.

The trio escaped to England on board a channel steamer in 1914 but whilst on board, Hilda's sister contracted enteric fever and died soon after arriving in England. She and her mother battled on but her mother also passed away two years later in 1916.

About the same time, Australian soldiers had occupied Etaples and her former studio was used as a lookout by members of the 24th Battalion, Australian Infantry. One of the officers there, Major George Matson Nicholas DSO, found her artwork and admired it greatly. So much so that when he was on leave in England he managed to track down Hilda - the artist who created the work he so much desired. A whirlwind romance ensued and they were married not long after. A few days after the ceremony, Major Nicholas said farewell to his bride and returned to duty in France. Six weeks later he was dead.

Hilda Rix Nicholas returned to Australia after the war; shattered by the tragedies of the last five years, and set about painting a common theme of the soldier which struck a chord with the newly emerging nation and the growing Anzac legend. One such image was A Man which is on display in the Australian War Memorial. In this image, Hilda uses the technique of using the proportions of the Heroic Figure. In this proportion, the torso is significantly larger than normal, emphasizing the shoulders and giving an impression of strength..

Hilda went on to marry Edgar Wright who was also a returned soldier and who, ironically, served in the same areas as Hilda's late husband whilst in France.

In my homage to her, I decided not to use the proportions of the heroic figure preferring to maintain standard proportions. And where she painted the dark and brooding skies of France and the terrain of the western front as seen in the lower right hand corner of her painting, I decided to use a more dramatic cumulonimbus cloud formation with a desert landscape of Iraq replacing her landscape of France. I also decided to use the name of her late husband, killed in France, as the name of the modern day soldier... and thus my soldier's surname is Nicholas.

I hope that it does her and her painting justice."

Nicholas, Hilda Rix

A man, Mosman NSW Australia, 1921

Painting

92 x 75 cm

Australian War Memorial (ART19613)

Independent Productions and Aviation Services is the website of Conway Bown, Australian Army Official War Artist and Aviation Consultant. Services include portrait painting and other portraiture, aviation services such as CRM - Crew Resource Management - and Helicopter Underwater Escape Training - HUET - which may include Emergency Breathing Systems - EBS - training using Helicopter Aircrew Breathing Devices - HABD - or Helicopter Emergency Egress Device - HEEDs.

During 2006, Conway Bown deployed to the Middle East as the Australian Army's Official War Artist, what the US Armed Forces call Combat Artist. This website features the artwork created during this project as part of the Australian Army's Official Art Scheme.

For more information on War Art, Combat Artists, Helicopter Underwater Escape Training (HUET), Emergency Breathing Systems (EBS) or Crew Resource Management (CRM), please visit the relevant webpages: