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Blind man in Belsen
Oil on canvas
51.2 x 61.4 cm
Australian War Memorial
Figure of a blind man, with head bandaged, walking through the Belsen concentration camp in Germany after liberation.
Alan Moore
SS guards burying dead, Belsen
Oil on canvas
46.2 x 61.4 x 2.3 cm
Australian War Memorial
For three days he drew and photographed the skeletal survivors and their persecutors, including the SS troops who were forced to bury their victims. After his return to Australia, Moore painted the horrific scenes he had witnessed.
Alan Moore
SS guards burying dead, Belsen
Oil on canvas
46.2 x 61.4 x 2.3 cm
Australian War Memorial
Alan Moore
Blind man in Belsen
Pen and brush and ink on paper
31.1 x 27.6 cm
Australian War Memorial
Three former SS guards dragging corpses at the concentration camp in Belsen, Germany at the end of the war.
Alan Moore (1 August 1914 – 24 September 2015) was an Australian war artist during World War II. He is best known for his images of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, and the Australian War Memorial holds many of his works.
Moore was born in Melbourne in 1914. He began life drawing art classes at age 16, but was forbidden by his father from continuing because the subjects were nude. He took up his studies again when he turned 18, at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School, this time completing his studies to obtain a degree. He also studied under J.S. Watkins in Sydney.
He won several art and drawing prizes in Melbourne, including the Grace Joel scholarship prize in 1942 for a nude painting.
On 14 July 1939 Moore married this first wife, Maria.
Moore enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) in 1942, where he was tasked with drawing airplane diagrams. A problem with one leg prevented him from being aircrew. In late 1943, following recommendations from artists William Dargie and Harold Herbert, he was commissioned as an official war artist attached to the army, and given the rank of lieutenant.
Moore's first deployment as an artist was with the RAAF in Papua New Guinea in early 1944. His earlier watercolour paintings, made in Milne Bay and Goodenough Island, were destroyed by wet weather and humidity; he subsequently changed to working with oils, which were more suitable for the tropical environment.
During his time in Papua New Guinea he flew in several bombing raids to make sketches from the air.
Towards the end of World War II, he recorded war scenes from Papua New Guinea, the Middle East, Italy, England and Germany.
In 1945 Moore accompanied the British 11th Armoured Division when they liberated the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany. He spent three days sketching and painting the state of the camp, its prisoners and their captors, including Fritz Klein. It was suggested by one soldier that nobody would believe the portrayals, prompting Moore to also photograph the scenes as proof.
After the war Moore spent some years in Europe. He eventually returned to Melbourne, where he taught painting at Swinburne Technical College from c. 1963. Moore also painted images from his Belsen sketches and photographs. They were exhibited commercially, but failed to sell. The Australian War Memorial initially rejected the material because it did not depict Australian soldiers; however it accepted them in 1969 when they were donated by Moore. In 2013–14 the Belsen images formed the basis of a year-long exhibition at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, which Moore himself visited at the invitation of the Memorial.
Moore continued to paint at his studio in Avoca until he was 95, stopped by arthritis and failing vision. At about the same time he moved into a nursing home in Avoca.
He died on 24 September 2015, survived by his third wife, Alison. More on Alan Moore
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