News-Info-Alerts

Re: POW Art Sells At Auction

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: April 15, 2002

"POW paintings fetch hefty prices at auction

April 16, 2002 Posted: 8:38 PM EDT (0038 GMT)


LONDON, England (AP) -- A group of searing paintings and drawings depicting life as a prisoner of the Japanese during World War II sold at auction Tuesday for almost 200,000 pounds ($286,000 US).

The works by Jack Bridger Chalker, who is now 83, had been expected to sell for about 80,000 pounds ($114,000).

Auctioneer Bonhams said the 49 works were bought by a variety of private collectors and museums -- including Britain's National Army Museum -- for a total of 193,904 pounds ($277,000).

The highest-selling lot, an oil painting and a pencil drawing of Australian surgeon Col. Edward "Weary" Dunlop performing an amputation, sold for 24,675 pounds ($35,300).

An art student-turned-soldier captured by the Japanese after the fall of Singapore in 1942, Chalker made the paintings and drawings in secret during his time in Japanese labor camps. He hid some of the works inside bamboo sticks, and was beaten by his captors when they were discovered, Chalker said.

The works include scenes of emaciated prisoners undergoing torture by their captors, and of the brutal conditions endured by prisoners forced to work building the Thai-Burma railway.

"I am rather stunned at the success of the sale, but I am very moved indeed by the kindness I have received, particularly from people who have bought the paintings which were linked to their families, who were former Pows and who died in the Far East," said Chalker. "