Focus on this artwork and discuss the History.
In May 1918, Sargent was one of several painters commissioned by the British War Memorials Committee of the British Ministry of Information to create a large painting for a planned Hall of Remembrance. The plan was a complement to the artworks commissioned by the Canadian War Memorials Fund since 1916 at the instigation of Lord Beaverbrook, who, by 1918, was serving as the British Minister of Information.  Other works were commissioned from Percy Wyndham Lewis, Paul Nash, Henry Lamb, John Nash and Stanley Spencer. The large scale of the works was inspired by Uccello's triptych The Battle of San Romano. The plan for a Hall of Remembrance decorated by large paintings was abandoned when the project was incorporated with that for Imperial War Museum.
As an American painter, Sargent was asked to create a work embodying Anglo-American co-operation. Although he was 62, he travelled to the Western Front in July 1918, accompanied by Henry Tonks. He spent time with the Guards Division near Arras and then with the American Expeditionary Forces near Ypres. He was determined to paint an epic work with many human figures but struggled to find a situation with American and British figures in the same scene. On 11 September 1918, Sargent wrote to Evan Charteris:The Ministry of Information expects an epic – and how can one do an epic without masses of men? Excepting at night I have only seen three fine subjects with masses of men – one a harrowing sight, a field full of gassed and blindfolded men – another a train of trucks packed with "chair à cannon" – and another frequent sight a big road encumbered with troops and traffic, I daresay the latter, combining English and Americans, is the best thing to do, if it can be prevented from looking like going to the Derby.The "harrowing sight" referred to the aftermath of a German barrage that Sargent witnessed on 21 August 1918, at Le Bac-du-Sud, near Bailleulval between Arras and Doullens, in which mustard gas had been used against the advancing 99th Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division and 8th Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division of the British Army, during the Second Battle of Arras of 1918. Tonks described the experience in a letter from to Alfred Yockney on 19 March 1920:After tea we heard that on the Doullens Road at the Corps dressing station at le Bac-du-sud there were a good many gassed cases, so we went there. The dressing station was situated on the road and consisted of a number of huts and a few tents. Gassed cases kept coming in, lead along in parties of about six just as Sargent has depicted them, by an orderly. They sat or lay down on the grass, there must have been several hundred, evidently suffering a great deal, chiefly I fancy from their eyes which were covered up by a piece of lint.... Sargent was very struck by the scene and immediately made a lot of notes. It was a very fine evening and the sun toward setting.In his memoirs, General Haldane, the commander of VI Corps, one of Third Army's corps west of Bapaume, states that at 10:40 on 21 August the sun "burst through the mist" and so the German mustard gas was vaporized. One of his divisions, 2nd Division, had been advanced through the gassed area and had paused prior to resuming its successful advance: "without warning a considerable number of officers and men were 'gassed' and temporarily placed hors de combat. As the unfortunate victims were being helped, practically blinded, by their comrades on a field ambulance, John Sergeant happened to arrive on the scene. Shortly before he had told me that he had been commissioned to paint a picture which should be typical of the war, and I suggested 'tanks,' they being the latest military machine and a novel feature of it."  However, as he later told Haldane, on seeing the gassed soldiers being led to the ambulance, "he decided that he has before him what he was seeking".Sargent worked on preparatory sketches for a road scene crowded with soldiers but decided to focus on the dressing station. The War Memorials Committee agreed to change the subject of the commission, and the painting was created at Sargent's studio in Fulham from late 1918 to early 1919.In 2023 the varnish which had been added during a previous restoration in the 1970s was replaced. It had slowly yellowed, changing the appearance of the painting.
Henry Tonks dressing station Paul Nash The Battle of San Romano Western Front VI Corps mustard gas General Haldane 2nd Infantry Division Henry Lamb Ypres 3rd Infantry Division Stanley Spencer Bailleulval Alfred Yockney Doullens Fulham Ministry of Information Evan Charteris British War Memorials Committee American Expeditionary Forces gas British Army Wyndham Lewis Imperial War Museum chair à cannon 8th Brigade Arras John Nash Guards Division Uccello Hall of Remembrance Percy Wyndham Lewis Lord Beaverbrook