Beginning in January 1918, Cullen served with Canadian forces with the rank of Captain. Captain Maurice Galbraith Cullen came to the attention of Lord Beaverbrook, who arranged for him to be commissioned as one of the Canadian official war artists along with Frederick Varley, J.W. Beatty and C. W. Simpson.
At 48 years of age, Cullen made an Honourary Captain in Montreal on 7 February 1918 with No. 4 Casualty Unit. He proceeded on duty to France, 29 December 1918, catching up to Sir Arthur Currie at Corps HQ on the Rhine in Germany.
The post ends where Cullen first started painting in Germany. Afterwards, he spent a few months in France and Belgium, visiting the battlefields where many of the fallen still lay exposed. With one exception, he refrained from revealing the horror of war.
Cite St Catherine
Ouse Trench
Gentelles
The extensive wood of Gentelles largely used to conceal the assembly of many tanks.
Villers au Bois
Canadian HQ during the Vimy period held just outside Villers au Bois. The cemetery here contains 78 Canadians who fell during the Battle of Vimy Ridge.
Lorries
Lorries used for a wide range of tasks, including transporting troops and supplies, moving artillery, and even some fitted with anti-aircraft guns.
Casualties
The CWRO forbade it’s photographers and war artists from showing Canadian war dead. It had no qualms over showing enemy dead bodies. However, it appears Cullen has not painted a dead German in the image below, but rather, a member of the Canadian Cavalry.
Hangard
Hangard a ‘popular’ destination among Canadian Troops in August of 1918 following the Battle of Amiens.
Nissen Huts
In April 1916, Major Peter Norman Nissen of the 29th Company Royal Engineers of the British Army began to experiment with hut designs.
No Man’s Land
March to the Rhine
The Canadian First Division occupied the bridgehead at Cologne, while the Second Canadian Division occupied Bonn, Germany.
Bonn University
Only British troops remained in the Rhine in March of 1919.
Captain Maurice Galbraith Cullen finished these works before being SoS of Corps HQ on 3 May 1919. He sailed to Canada on 27 May 1919.
National Gallery of Canada
Maurice Galbraith Cullen grew up in Montreal, studying art privately. After attempting a commercial career, he studied sculpting. At 22, he enrolled as a student at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris. He enrolled in the studio Julian and studio Colarossi, meeting James Wilson Morrice and William Brymner. In Paris, Cullen learned traditional French academic painting, but encountered Impressionism and the Barbizon School.
He returned to Montreal in 1895. In 1900, he became the stepfather of the artist Robert W. Pilot. He revisited Europe in 1895-1902 and 1925, painting in France, Italy, the Netherlands and North Africa, and served as a war artist in 1918-1919 (Huy on the Meuse, 1919). In Québec and Beaupré, Cullen painted out-of-doors in all seasons, often with Morrice and Brymner.
Cullen died in 1934. A. Y. Jackson said of him,
“To us, he was a hero.”
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