Grace Cossington Smith - First World War

First World War

Arriving in Australia back from a holiday to England shortly before the First World War began, Smith supported the war effort. Her 1915 painting The Sock Knitter, of her sister knitting socks for the war effort, is often regarded as the first post-impressionist painting in Australia. The painting shows a girl studiously working away, knitting from a ball of yarn which sits delicately by her side. When taken in the context of the war, it is a powerful picture of someone working on something small to help a greater cause. She also later drew a series of cartoons which were satirical and anti-German, showing caricatures of German army figures. She also did a drawing of Belgian refugees fleeing the Germans at the start of the war. Her drawings of these wartime figures are much different from the usual style in her work.