Arthur Murch - Girl in Cave
Oil on board
Signed lower left
54.5cm x 44.5cm

Arthur James Murch 1902 - 1989

In 1924 Arthur James Murch abandoned his career as an engineering draughtsman in Sydney to become a full time artis. His sculptural work won him the 1925 NSW Travelling Art Scholarship, which allowed him to travel to Europe and explore paintings "as if i were a pilgrim transversing the years". When he returned to Australia two years later, he worked as George Lambert's studio assistant until Lambert's death in 1930. In 1933 Murch visited the Lutheran mission at Hermannsburg outside Alice Springs. The following year he took a second trip to Central Australia, this time staying for three months.

Shortly after, Murch journeyed to Darwin and while there his health collapsed and he was admitted to hospital. On returning to Sydney in February 1943, he was diagnosed with sreptococci infection. Although his field work had ended, he continued his official commission in Sydney, completing 45 paintings and drawings for the Memorial's collection. His appointment concluded on the 17th May 1943.

As an official war artist, Murch saw his role as that of a visual reporter "What i was anxious to do in drawing and painting was to report, as a newspaper reporter might, the factual nature of things". His paintings of daily life at the Adelaide River camp site represent aspects of Australia's involvment in the Second World War devoid of glamour heroics. They capture the essential, yet mundane, duties that occurred in the Top End, moments of watching and waiting, and the heat and vastness of the Australian landscape.