Irish Troops in the Judaean Hills Surprised by a Turkish Bombardment, 1919

One of a series of paintings commissioned by the British War Memorial Committee set up by the Ministry of Information early in 1918.The Committee developed a scheme to build a ‘Great memorial gallery’ devoted to ‘fighting subjects, home subjects and the war at sea and inthe air’. The centre of the scheme was to be a coherent series of paintings based on the dimensions of Uccello’s ‘Battle of San Romano’ in the National Gallery (72 x 125 inches), this size being considered suitable for a commemorative battle painting. While the commissions included some of the most avant-garde British artists of the time, the BWMC advisors saw the scheme as firmly within the tradition of European art commissioning, looking to models from the Renaissance. It was intended that both the art and the setting would celebrate national ideals of heroism and sacrifice. However, the Hall of Remembrance was never completed and the collection was given to the Imperial War Museum.Henry Lamb was serving in the Egyptian Expeditionary Force when he was approached by the Committee in February 1918. He was unable to start work on the painting until after he demobbed in March 1919.