Lot 62: ROBERT TAIT MCKENZIE 1867 - 1938

ROBERT TAIT MCKENZIE 1867 - 1938 BLIGHTY 1916 signed © R. Tait McKenzie , dated and inscribed ROMAN BRONZE WORKS IN N.Y. on the base bronze 27.9 by 19.1 by 39.4 cm. 11 by 7 ½ by 15 ½ in.

Christopher Hussey, Tait McKenzie, A Sculptor of Youth, 1930, p. 56, plates 48 and 49, for Blighty, reproduced

Freeman's Auctioneers, Philadelphia, June 22, 2008, lot 71

Private Collection, Montreal

McKenzie, a medical doctor, was known for his bronzes of athletic males. Blighty, a "soldier home on leave", was modelled from life in 1915 when McKenzie saw a group of Seaforth Highlanders on leave enjoying a smoke. Christopher Hessey comments on a clay maquette of Blighty:

...the figure embodies the spirit which carried England through the early winters of the war, the spirit melodized in those wistful comic songs about "Home Fires Burning"

Blighty is a maquette for The Volunteer, 1923, an 8 foot bronze at the Rosamond War Memorial, Almonte, Canada, commemorating Alec R. Rosamond, head of the Rosamond Woolen Mills, who had volunteered in 1914 and was killed at Courcellette.

A related figure of Blighty is in the Queen's Collection at Balmoral.