Faces from the front

The speaker at our November meeting was Sarah Bowerman, on the subject of Tonks, Gillies, Kennington, Hillary: Art and Facial Reconstructive Surgery in WWI and WWII. She looked at both the pioneering surgical techniques used to repair the faces of men suffering entirely new kinds of wounds during the First and Second World Wars, and at the relationships between the surgeons, patients and certain artists who undertook to document the work—especially how the pastel medium was used to express the reality of the damaged flesh and the personalities of the men whose faces could no longer be read with everyday nuance, in a way that stark photography could not capture. She looked at New Zealand Surgeon Harold Gillies, who asked artist and Slade Professor Henry Tonks to record his surgeries. Then in the Second World war Eric Henri Kennington was employed by the War Office to paint portraits of heroes from the Navy, the RAF and the Home Guard. In 1942 he gained a private commission to paint Richard Hillary—a survivor of the Battle of Britain, an author and the subject of extensive facial reconstructive surgery. Hillary was a celebrity for a while and keenly lobbied to be allowed to fly again.

We were also delighted to be visited by American members Col. Cyrus Choke and his partner German, who attended our meeting as part of a grand European tour. Also attending was our newest member, the youthful Tristan Aquilina, all the way from Malta, whose uncle is existing member Francis Giordanella.

You can see a video of the talk at https://youtu.be/qETo-Cp58oc. You can see still photos from the evening at flickr.com/photos/sheridanclub/albums/72177720303419343.

Note that some of the slides contain images of facial injury and surgery.

(l–r) Henry Ball, Col. Choke (aka John Delikanakis), Tim Eyre, German