Comrades in arms to stand together

by Suzanne McFadden, The New Zealand Herald

"A Kiwi digger - tall, bronzed and standing at arms - is about to stand shoulder to shoulder with his fellow Anzac comrade once again. Dressed in the lemon squeezer hat and woolen puttees of a First World War Anzac soldier, the 4.2m-high statue stands in a Sydney foundry, waiting to be placed at the foot of Sydney's Anzac Bridge next to the Aussie Digger, who's been on guard since 2000. The two effigies of men at war will be an enduring testimony to the shared sacrifice of the Anzac soldiers. New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark will unveil the Kiwi Digger in a ceremony at the western end of the bridge on April 27.
The iconic New Zealand soldier has been sculpted by Alan Somerville, a distinguished New Zealand artist now living in Sydney, who also made the Australian statue.
Neither statue was based on any particular soldier - Somerville teaches life drawing so he created each soldier's face from his memory. They share a similar stance, but there a few differences between the two men.
"The Aussie Digger has a slouch hat, and the Kiwi has a lemon squeezer. And I tease the Aussies and say the Kiwi Digger is 2 inches taller," Somerville says. "You've got to stand on our own two feet as a Kiwi over here."
Somerville says he has had "amazing responses" to the Aussie Digger statue, whose feet stand in sand from the beaches of Gallipoli where the Anzacs first landed on April 25, 1915.
"People who don't know anything about sculpture say they can see the emotion in him. It was a very straight up and down stance, but I wanted to get something in the attitude. I guess the face has a feeling of remembrance, of contemplation," he says.
Creating the Kiwi Digger was a nine-month mission, from creating the full armature around which the sculpture was built, to four months in the foundry where it was cast into bronze. Somerville was kicking himself for throwing away the original frame of the Australian version, and having to start again from scratch.
Somerville has his own connection to Anzac Day. As a young man who loved to draw, he worked on a farm in the Maniototo in partnership with a WW2 returned serviceman, Nigel McGregor.
"We never missed an Anzac Day commemoration. He fought through the Middle East and Italy, and it was there he fell in love with art. He was a wonderful man, and he gave me a great start," says Somerville, who moved to Australia 20 years ago.
"In a way, now that I have both passports I feel like a true Anzac."
Last year, Somerville made a life-size bronze of the famous Kiwi stallion Sir Tristram that stands in Sir Patrick Hogan's Cambridge Stud; his next project is an AFL player for the Sydney Cricket Ground.
The Kiwi Digger was a joint project commissioned in June last year by Helen Clark and New South Wales Premier Morris Iemma. The New Zealand Government contributed $386,000 towards the statue, which will be unveiled in front of Anzac veterans in the Sunday ceremony.
"The twin soldier statues in the heart of Australia's largest city remind us of our close relationship and of the proud traditions we share. It will be a fitting tribute to the sacrifices made by ANZAC servicemen and women over more than 100 years," Helen Clark says.

Read the full article from The New Zealand Herald here.