Vietnam on Canvas Ken McFadyen, an Artist at ... - Australian Army

Book review
<strong>Vietnam</strong> on Canvas – Ken McFadyen, an Artist at War, Sandra Finger
Lee, Barrallier Books, Canberra, 2010, ISBN 9780980663303.
Reviewed by Brigadier David Webster
Sandra Finger Lee’s book admirably combines Ken McFadyen’s art and the
story of his service with the Army in <strong>Vietnam</strong> as an official war artist; though
there is much more to this book than the title suggests. For me, the portrayal
of the artist’s life, from the time he was appointed as a <strong>Vietnam</strong> war artist at the age
of 35 through to his untimely death from a heart attack thirty-one years later while
fighting a bush fire on his Victorian country property, is as much of interest as what
he witnessed and its effect on him as depicted in his art.
To do his job effectively, McFadyen first had to become a soldier—and an infantry
soldier in particular. No one gets a free ride in an infantry battalion especially one
that is at war. McFadyen would have been tested by his infantry colleagues to ensure
that if he did become engaged in combat he would not be a liability. He obviously
passed with flying colours.
Embracing this most demanding of military professions enabled him to see
and record the events that characterised the conflict through the eyes of those
who prosecuted the war at the ‘sharp end’. This can be seen in his portrayal of the
fighting, the movement of the soldiers, their major weapons systems (especially the
ubiquitous Iroquois helicopter), the environment in which they worked and the
exhaustion they felt in a war with little opportunity for proper rest. His vivid use of
colour in portraying the evergreen tropical vegetation in which most action took
place acts as a footnote to each remembered event he witnessed.
Finger-Lee skilfully tells his story and hints at a close relationship with the
artist to establish herself as confidante in coaxing from him at least some of his
innermost feelings—something soldiers tend not to do except to other soldiers
who have shared similar experiences. The liberal use of quotes from McFadyen
gives the impression, at times, that one is reading an autobiographical account of
the artist’s experiences.
page 134 • Volume VIII, Number 1 • Australian Army Journal

<strong>Vietnam</strong> on Canvas
There is mystery too in his paintings. In the cover, for example, the soldiers
are all carrying their weapons in their left hands while in other scenes no one is
wearing a watch when every soldier did in fact have a watch which was considered
a critical item of equipment. There is mystery too surrounding the disappearance
of a considerable amount of his work; what happened to the paintings that were
removed from his farm by persons unknown? And what do the letters sent to the
head of the Australian War Memorial contain? Why did he ask that they not be
opened for thirty years?
Like so many others, the Ken McFadyen who left Australia in August 1967 was
not the same man who returned following his service. And it is unlikely that the
change process ceased on his return in March 1968—it would have continued; and
so, as he changed, the interpretation and expression of what he had seen and how
he portrayed it would also have changed. Alas, the missing artworks, incomplete
paintings and sketches deny us the opportunity to see how this played out.
In explaining the discomfort that so often accompanies armed conflict, I was
curious to read that McFadyen at one point felt extreme cold. He refers to an
operation in which D Company 7 RAR was led into a Viet Cong stronghold and
reflects that ‘you get to know yourself very, very well on a mission like that’. As a
young National Service platoon commander with D Company, I participated in the
incident to which he refers. The company was inserted into a Landing Zone that
was over a foot-deep in water and then commenced an all day approach march
in the pouring rain to attack a Viet Cong camp. Guided by two SAS troopers, we
attacked the camp very late in the afternoon with two platoons and, after a two-hour
battle in which the company suffered two KIA and twenty-two WIA, the camp was
secured and the long wait for daylight began. A further twelve hours of being wet,
cold and hungry in the total blackness of a rain-sodden forest passed before the
light of dawn and the commencement of the drying out process. Our discomfort
was exacerbated by the rotor downwash from the DUSTOFF helicopters hovering
over us for over three hours as the dead and wounded were lifted out. Although I
recall there were some extra personnel with the company on that operation, I was
completely unaware until reading this book that Ken McFadyen was one of them.
The chapter on ‘photographer versus artist’ resonates with me especially. A
colleague and I spent a number of years compiling a pictorial history of 7 RAR’s
two tours of duty in South <strong>Vietnam</strong> and over that time poured over literally
thousands of photos to depict the battalion’s experiences of war. As Finger-Lee
says, the photograph captures a moment but the war artist’s snapshot in time, seen
through his mind’s eye, is processed in the context of his own experience to create
an image unique to the artist. I believe McFadyen’s paintings captured the <strong>Vietnam</strong>
War with a strength and vitality that accurately reflect my memories of that period
of the war.
Australian Army Journal • Volume VIII, Number 1 • page 135

Book review • Brigadier David Webster
I found reading Finger Lee’s account of Ken McFadyen’s experience as a member
of an infantry battalion and war artist very rewarding. Knowing something of Ken
McFadyen’s experience in <strong>Vietnam</strong> as the longest serving of only two official war
artists of the ten-year Australian involvement in the <strong>Vietnam</strong> War, allows me to
see his work in a new light. Perhaps his missing paintings will one day come to
light—and it is only eighteen years until the message in his embargoed letters to
the AWM can be revealed.
page 136 • Volume VIII, Number 1 • Australian Army Journal