A Choice Collection of Medals to War Correspondents

The Queen’s South Africa Medal awarded to ‘painter, etcher, raconteur and rifle-shot’, Mortimer Menpes, who accompanied the City of London Imperial Volunteers to the front during the Boer War as war artist for Black & White illustrated weekly magazine

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, no clasp, (Mr. M. Menpes “Black & White.”) very fine £1,400-£1,800

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Choice Collection of Medals to War Correspondents.

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Mortimer Luddington Menpes was born in 1855 at Port Adelaide, South Australia, the son of property developer James Menpes and was educated at John L. Young’s Adelaide Educational Institution, although his formal art training began at the School of Art in London in 1878 after his family had moved back to England in 1875 and settled in Chelsea. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1880, and, over the following 20 years, 35 of his paintings and etchings were shown at the Academy. He met James McNeil Whistler on a sketching tour of Brittany in 1880 and became Whistler’s pupil, learning the etching techniques that were to become evident in much of his later work. In 1886 he stood as godfather to Oscar Wilde’s son and the following year, a visit to Japan led to his first one-man exhibition at Dowdeswell’s Gallery in London.

In 1900, following the outbreak of war in the Transvaal, Menpes sailed to South Africa as a war artist for the weekly illustrated magazine Black & White, in which, on 3 February 1900, the following appeared:
‘Accompanying the City of London Imperial Volunteers to the front is an artist whose name is known the whole world over, because he is first of all an artist, and secondly a reporter of events. This is Mr. Mortimer Menpes, who is entitled to tag after his name a list of honours and titles of which few artists can boast. Mr. Menpes is the inventor of a process of colour etching, in which, to the sharpness and definition attained by the tools of the etcher, he has added the softness and brilliance of all the rich colours that may be laid on the painter’s palette. Mr Menpes will be able to send us from the front portraits of all the principal Generals and notabilities of the war.’

Menpes’ sketches from the campaign were subsequently transcribed by his daughter Dorothy Menpes and published by Charles Black of Soho Square in 1901 under the title ‘War Impressions, being a record in colour by Mortimer Menpes’.

After the war Menpes travelled widely and and many of his illustrations were published in books again accompanied by text written by Dorothy. He painted in oil and watercolour as well as being a prolific printmaker, producing over 700 etchings and drypoints during his career to great acclaim. A definitive catalog raisonné of his printed works was published in 2012 which also included an extensive biography and his exhibition history. He died at Pangbourne in 1938.

‘Menpes, Mortimer, F.R.G.S.; painter, etcher, raconteur, and rifle-shot; inartistically born in Australia; war artist for Black and White in South Africa, 1900. Educ.: nominally at a grammar school in Port Adelaide, but really on a life scheme of his own. His career as a painter began when he was one year old; he is still a painter. He had held more one-man exhibitions in London than any other living painter: viz Japan, India, Mexico, Burmah, Cashmere, France, Spain, Morocco, Egypt, Venice, Beautiful Women, Beautiful Children, The War in South Africa, Venice, exhibitions of Black and White, and of Etchings in colour, thereby reviving a lost art. Publications: a whole series of etchings at different periods; Essays (one called the Actualists, a skit on the Impressionists); War Impressions, 1901; Japan 1901; World Pictures, 1902; World’s Children, 1903; The Durbar, 1903; Venice, 1904; Whistler as I knew Him, 1904; Brittany, 1905; Rembrandt, 1905; India, 1905; Thames, 1906; Sir Henry Irving, 1906; Portrait Biographies, Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener. In the preparation of World Pictures he did the world in record time, being unsurpassed even by Jules Verne. Founder of the Menpes Press; Founder of the Menpes Great Masters, which are reproduced under his direction; Founder and Managing Director of the Menpes Fruit Farms, Pangboume.’ (Who’s Who, 1932)

Sold together with a copy of Black & White magazine (cover loose), dated 3 February 1900, containing the above quoted reference to Menpes and his portrait picture; copy of Black & White magazine, dated 5 May 1900, cover loose; a quantity of copies of Menpes’ illustrations and sketches appearing in Black & White magazine during 1900; a letter from Menpes to a Mr Head, written from the Vicarage, Gorelstone in 1902, regarding a sold painting; other copied research and the following 8 hardback books: Deluxe Edition (No 86 of 350 copies and signed by Mortimer Menpes) of War Impressions, being a record in colour by Mortimer Menpes transcribed by Dorothy Menpes published by Adam & Charles Black Soho Square, London 1901, very good condition; another, standard 1901 edition, binding loose; Japan a record in colour by Mortimer Menpes transcribed by Dorothy Menpes published by Adam & Charles Black , Soho Square, London 1901, binding loose; World Pictures by Mortimer Menpes text by Dorothy Menpes published by A. & C. Black Soho Square London 1902; World’s Children by Mortimer Menpes text by Dorothy Menpes, published by Adam and Charles Black, London, 1903, 1st edition, Westbourne School Sheffield 1908 prize label inside front cover - awarded to Dorothy A. Nash, cover of spine weak; India by Mortimer Menpes text by Flora Annie Steel published by Charles Black Soho Square London, 1912 edition, ex public library, spine sun faded; Paris by Mortimer Menpes text by Dorothy Menpes published by Adam and Charles Black 1909, with partially torn dust jacket, inscribed inside front cover ‘with love and good wishes from all at Netherley, Xmas 1909’ Venice by Lonsdale and Laura Ragg illustrated by Mortimer Menpes, published by A. & C. Black Ltd. 4,5 & 6 Soho Square, London, 1916.