ANZACS

Jean-Émile Laboureur was a prolific printmaker and illustrator from France whose distinct graphic style was derived from the analytical, geometric school of Cubism.
Founder of the Société des Peintres Graveurs Indépendants in 1923, Laboureur was friend to avant-garde poet Guillaume Apollinaire and painter Marie Laurencin. At the Académie Julian, Paris, Laboureur met the eminent wood engraver Auguste Lepère, and decided to devote himself to the study of printmaking. By the end of the First World War, he was a successful book designer and illustrator.
During the war Laboureur served as a French interpreter with the British Expeditionary Forces. He made a series of ten woodcuts in 1918 portraying types of soldiers ('Imagerie de l'arrière', edition of 445) and continued to work on these subjects into the 1920s.
The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) was raised in November 1914 and for the duration of the war were under British senior command in the Middle East, Belgium and France. Their distinctive uniforms, most particularly the Australians’ slouch hats, set them apart from their British colleagues. Laboureur has included other elements into his print to distinguish the figures as Australian including the rising sun motif and the horses, of which Australia shipped more than 120,000 overseas during the war.