Simpson and his donkey, Gallipoli painting

Horace Millichamp Moore-Jones, Private Simpson, D.C.M., & his donkey at Anzac, 1918.

Moore-Jones’s most widely recognised work was not painted at the battlefront, but from a photograph. His depiction of Private John Simpson Kirkpatrick and his donkey was done when Moore-Jones was touring his watercolours in Dunedin in 1918, three years after the Gallipoli landings. He altered the composition of the photo to make for a more dramatic drawing.

The photograph this painting is based on is actually of a New Zealand stretcher-bearer, Richard (Dick) Henderson. Henderson served in Gallipoli and later on the Western Front. Seriously gassed in October 1917, he spent several months convalescing in England before his repatriation to New Zealand in February 1918.

• Read biography of Horace Moore-Jones (NZHistory)
• Find out more about Simpson (John Simpson Kirkpatrick) on Wikipedia