Rest at Oasis

At the beginning of World War I, James McBey was prevented from enlisting as a soldier due to poor eyesight. But as a self-taught artist of considerable skill he was commissioned in January 1916 as a second lieutenant in the Army Printing & Stationery Service based in Rouen. While on leave there he completed two series of sketches, France at her Furnaces, showing the munitions works at Harfleur, and some views of the Somme. After these drawings were shown in London, McBey was appointed an official war artist to the Egyptian Expeditionary Force. Having traveled to Morocco in 1911, he was seen by the higher-ups to have the relevant experience and aptitude for this assignment, and he arrived there in 1917.For the next eighteen months McBey documented troop activities and the arid landscape in which he accompanied the Allied advance in Palestine, from Gaza to Damascus, working in watercolors, oils, and etching. He spent five days on a reconnaissance mission in the Sinai Desert with an Imperial Camel Corps patrol, consisting of roughriders from the Australian outback, and witnessed Allenby’s entry into Jerusalem in December 1917.After his 1931 marriage to American artist Marguerite Loeb, he purchased a home near Tangier, and the couple divided their time between, Britain, America, and Morocco. (“‘The War to End All Wars’: Artists and World War I,” curated by Nancy E. Green and presented at the Johnson Museum, January 21-June 11, 2017)