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Human spirit triumphs through artist's eyes
By Heather Wallace
A rare collection of artist 's drawings and records that depict first hand the grim conditions of prisoners of war in Changi and on the Burma-Thailand Railway is a triumph of the human spirit.
The drawings, watercolours, scripts, sketchbooks and maps record the harrowing experiences of prisoner of war Jack Chalker, who assisted Edward 'Weary' Dunlop as a medical orderly.
Chalker was a British artist who joined the Royal Artillery in 1939 and was among the 130 000 Allied servicemen captured by the Japanese Army after the fall of Singapore in 1942.
He was first held in Changi Prison and later sent to work on the infamous Burma-Thailand Railway. After becoming ill with dysentery and dengue fever he was sent to the hospital camp at Chungkai, where he assisted Weary Dunlop.
Chalker used his skill as an artist to secretly record the emaciated conditions of prisoners and the medical equipment Dunlop devised.
Considerable danger was involved in recording the prisoners' conditions. After some of his sketches were discovered by a Korean guard Chalker was forced to tear them up and was beaten for two days. One piece, Two working men, Kanyu River camp , survived hidden under a pile of rags.
The Jack Chalker Collection has been donated to the Australian War Memorial by Tattersall's through the Commonwealth's Cultural Gifts Program.
The collection is just one of the cultural treasures that have been donated under the Program, transferring culturally significant items from the private to the public domain for the benefit of all Australians for generations to come.
The Cultural Gifts Program will celebrate its 25th anniversary in 2003. More than $270 million of gifts have been donated to public galleries, museums and libraries around the country since the program first began in 1978.
Contact:
The exhibition will be at the Australian War Memorial until 2 March 2003.Visit the website at www.awm.gov.au for details,or for more information about the Cultural Gifts Program call 02 6271 1640 or visit www.dcita.gov.au/cgp.