Feature: Exhibition - War artist Percy Smith at Hampstead Museum

Published: 13 May 2010
by JOSH LOEB

WHEN Percy Smith caught sight of a  15-inch Howitzer gun pointing skyward in a military training camp in Southampton, his first thought was that he wanted to make an etching print of it.

He dug out his sketchbook – and was hauled before General Aston, the stern com­mander of the camp.       “Well, I’m actually rather interested in etching,” the general said. “Mind if we have a chat?”

Peter Delf, great-nephew of Percy Smith and founder of the Percy Smith Foundation, said the military hierarchy tolerated Smith’s activities despite the artist’s refusal to avert his gaze from the  horrors of war. 

Mr Delf explained that  General Aston had said: “Well obviously I can’t give you permission to sketch the gun. But I’m away for a few days; I’ll make sure no one disturbs you.”

Senior officers also turned a blind eye to the copper plates that were smuggled to Smith in the trenches of the Somme, leafed inside patriotic “King and Country” magazines. 

When he returned to Southampton, Smith produced his most famous work – the distinctly anti-war Dance of Death series inspired by the ruins of the Thiepval chateau, which he had     sketched, and where Edwin Lutyens’ Memorial to the Missing of the Somme now stands.

“18,000 people were killed in one day alone in July 1916,” says Mr Delf. “It was a massacre. The Dance of Death I’d term a braindump – you’ve got to get something out of your system somehow and that’s what he did. It’s funny, lots of people came back from the First World War and didn’t talk about it. He came back and did this.”

As well as being a prolific printmaker, Smith, who lived in Rudall Crescent, Hampstead, worked as a calligrapher and typographer. His work ranged from portraits of famous figures of his day – including Winston Churchill, Lord Robert Cecil and the ­playwright JB Priestley (who lived just around the corner from him in Well Walk) to more prosaic creations. For example, he came up with the typeface which appeared on London Underground ticket machines in the 1930s and illustrated book jackets and shop signs.

A major exhibition of his work – only the second in London for 35 years – opened earlier this week at the Hampstead Museum, Burgh House. 

Along with artwork, Smith’s war diary is on display. “He couldn’t write anything too revealing,” says Mr Delf. “But it is symptomatic of what life was like in the trenches. He didn’t dwell too much on the unpleasantness but I would guess that a lot of the time they were there, they were picking up body parts and cleaning up the mess.”

Percy Smith died in 1948, having worked in the inter-war period on memorials for those killed in the First World War. Though Mr Delf does not remember his great uncle, he remembers his great aunt, Dr Ellen Delf Smith (Smith’s wife), herself a highly respected and eccentric doctor of botany. 

“They travelled widely – to Palestine, the US and in Europe,” says Mr Delf. “They were very active people and quite avant-garde for their day.”

• Percy Smith’s work is on show at Hampstead Museum, Burgh House, New End Square, NW3, until August 15. 020 7431 0144, noon to 5pm, Wednesday-Sunday. Free.