Design for 'The ANZAC Book' cover Accession Number: ART19665

Description

Depicts an Australian soldier holding a rifle and bayonet, standing astride a dead Turk, and another Australian soldier standing below and to the side holding an Australian flag. In the background is ANZAC Cove with a warship in the harbour. The border around the image contains the text 'ANZAC 1916 MAGAZINE' and a design containing two plants entwined around the bottom of the border, and two 18 pounder guns with a soldier for each at the top of the border. This work was a candidate for gracing the cover of what became 'The ANZAC Book'. 'The ANZAC Book' was initially thought of as a New Year magazine for the troops on the Gallipoli peninsula, however, the evacuation of the forces lead the editor, CEW Bean, into creating a book to commemorate the time spent by the ANZAC troops at Gallipoli. A £5 monetary prize was offered for the best design for the cover, which was won by David Barker. 'The ANZAC Book' was published in 1916 from illustrations, poems, stories and other creative works from the soldiers on the Gallipoli peninsula. In November 1915 CEW Bean, an official war correspondent and eventually official war historian, called for contributions for the publication. Bean edited the work on the island of Imbros and after the Greek publisher fell through, arranged to have the work published in London by Cassell and Company. The book is composed of satirical and sombre pieces about the conditions of life at Gallipoli. It also provides a general outline of the April 25 landing at ANZAC Cove and the military advances, offensives and defensives undertaken in the following months until the eventual evacuation of the Allied forces at the end of December 1915. The introduction was written by General Sir W Birdwood, who explains how he named ANZAC Cove on the Gallipoli peninsula after the ANZAC forces. Bean contributed an editor's note in which he outlined the harsh conditions that the book was produced in, the significance it had taken on, and acknowledged the contributors.
Frank Rossitor Crozier was a painter and illustrator. Born in Maryborough, Victoria he studied at the National Gallery School, Victoria from 1905-1907, winning prizes for landscape and drawing. He worked initially as a decorator and clerk before enlisting in the 22nd battalion, AIF in March 1915. He served in Egypt, at Gallipoli, where he contributed to the ANZAC Book , and in France where he was attached to the 1st Anzac Corp Topographical Section in 1917. In France he served under Brigadier-General Gellibrand who asked Crozier to make sketches of the Battle of Pozieres. He was appointed official war artist in September 1918. Like fellow official war artist Will Dyson, Crozier often painted the human dimension of warfare. Following the First World War he became the first combatant AIF artist to be appointed to War Records Section in London. Returning to Australian in 1919 his commission was terminated the following year. He undertook further studies in England and the United States from 1923-24 and exhibited with the Royal Academy in London. In 1936 he was appointed an artist to the War Memorial for a period of six months and during the Second World War worked in a munitions factory in Victoria. He died in Victoria in 1948.