Lane Borstad, Grande Prairie Regional College

With the recent 90th anniversary of the Canadian Battle at Vimy Ridge there has been a renewed interest in the Vimy Ridge Memorial monument. Much of this attention has focused on the history, interpretations and myths surrounding both the battle and the monument. This paper looks at the life of the architect and sculptor of the Vimy Ridge Monument – Walter Seymour Allward. Allward received his first public commission at the age of 18 and by the time of the Canadian Battlefields Memorials Commission’s competition for memorials in France and Belgium in 1920, he was one of the most successful sculptors in Canada. Vimy was to become the culmination of his life work. In 1938 when he reestablished his studio in Toronto, Allward was 63 years old and Canada was once again on the brink of war. Devastated by WW II he only completed one last commission prior to his death in 1955.
Allward’s public sculpture is well know but it is his drawings which reveal his personal response to war which underlies the Vimy memorial. Through the examination of his drawings we may understand how his personal response becomes a universal statement at Vimy.