THE RETURN HOME

Mary Riter Hamilton, The Return Home, 1919, Oil on canvas, 81.0 x 50.1 cm. Collection of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. Purchased with funds provided by the Estate of Caroline Radcliffe Nelles, Halifax, Nova Scotia, 2007 with assistance from The Art & Pearl van der Linden Foundation. 2007.128

Mary Riter Hamilton’s painting, The Return Home, was acquired at auction through the Estate of Caroline Radcliffe Nelles. This glorious work finds an appropriate home at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. The artist was commissioned by the Canadian War Amps to go to Europe 1919-1926 where she encountered and recorded on canvas the devastation and aftermath of WWI. The Return Home is a poignant image of troops aboard a Canadian Troop Carrier (either the OLYMPIC or AQUITINA) en route home to Canada following WWI.
– Sarah Fillmore, Chief Curator