Gunner F. J. Mears (1890–1929) was a British soldier of World War I, and subsequently a successful artist, painting war scenes, before his early death.
Mears was born in 1890.[1][2][3][4] Details of his life, including his full name, are scant.[5][6]
One of Mears' paintings of a WW1 battlefield at night
After the war, he was unfit for his previous work and living on a weekly disablement pension of 8s (equivalent to £26in 2023).[7] With the encouragement of his wife, and despite having no formal art training,[7] he painted a number of scenes of battlefields at night, featuring silhouetted soldiers. He worked in pencil or ink and watercolour,[3] on paper, sometimes embellished with silver paint.[6]
Rouge Hill – note the upside-down signature
He signed his work "Gnr FJ Mears BEF",[5] or "Gnr FJ Mears RGA BEF",[9] but always wrote this upside down, explaining: "The whole of the World is upside down... Why then should my signature only be the right way up?".[5][10]
a picture of a shattered, splintered trees crying aloud ... against the horrors of it all, of dark sinister pools of mud, of a troubled sky, and of insignificant little crouching figures running across a shell-swept road
That picture was advertised for sale in the window of a shop on Piccadilly and was bought by Dame Katharine Furse,[7] who had led the British Red Cross' Voluntary Aid Detachment force during the war. It was said that income from the sale rescued Mears and his wife from poverty and destitution—it was reported in the press that, before this, "one day they shared a kipper, another day they had a few potatoes".[7]
The Menin Road. Broken trees, a road disappearing towards the horizon, and stretcher bearers, were all common motifs in Mears' work.
Art genius who paints in a garret. Lowly man's pictures bought by aristocracy. Dukes as customers.
His address was given in May 1920 as 13, Windmill Street, Tottenham Court Road, London,[7][11] where he and his wife occupied "a room about 9ft by 6ft" with no bed, because they could not afford to buy one.[7] Another address, written on the reverse of some of his works, was given as "Fern Villa, Markenfield Road, Guildford, Surrey".[9][12]
Mears died in 1929, at the age of 38 or 39,[5] due to the effects of the gas he had inhaled during the war.[2]
