Gallipoli-Kampagne.

Berlin : Graphische Werkstatt, [1975]. Edition limited to 20 copies (no. 2), signed and numbered by the artist. Oblong elephant folio, original red cloth boards lettered in black (a few light marks) with black cord binding, containing 12 coloured lithographs signed by the artist, each 370 x 750 mm; text in German, English and Latin. A fine copy.

German artist Manfred Bluth trained in Berlin and Munich in the 1940s and 50s. Along with Johannes Grützke, Matthias Koeppel und Karlheinz Ziegler, he was a founder of Die Schule der Neuen Prächtigkeit, a group formed in January 1973 as a reaction against abstract modernism. The work of this school can be broadly categorized as satirical realism. Bluth himself was strongly influenced by the work of Max Ernst.

In Gallipoli-Kampagne Bluth savages any preconceptions we might have about the disastrous Gallipoli campaign of 1915 being a noble and worthwhile sacrifice of human life. He depicts the futility of war, the arrogance of the invader, and the folly of military commanders in a series of striking graphics which incorporate text largely drawn from eyewitness accounts and contemporary commentaries by Australian, British, French and Turkish writers. The Gallipoli story unfolds in chronological sequence, from the opening naval bombardment and initial landings to the war graves of the Allied dead. An entire lithograph is devoted to the August offensive, in which the ANZAC forces suffered horrendous casualties.

A single example recorded in Australian collections (SLNSW, acquired from us in 2015)