Charles Fripp Military Artwork

He was influenced by his father, the landscape artist George A Fripp, and he studied art in Nuremberg and at the Royal Academy of Munich. He is primarily known as an illustrator, in which capacity he worked for The Graphic from 1875 onwards, and the Daily Graphic from 1890 until 1900. Fripp spent many years in southern Africa covering the Ninth Kaffir, Zulu, Boer (1881 and 1899) and Matabele Wars; he was also 'special artist' in the 1885 campaign in Sudan, and covered a number of foreign wars including the Sino-Japanese conflict of 1894-95 and the Philippine insurrection of 1899. He also held a commission in the Artist's Rifles for 13 years. A number of his original sketches and water-colours survive but he is chiefly remembered for his painting 'The Last Stand at Isandhlula (Isandhlwana)'. (National Army Museum) which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1885. His only other Academy picture was his 1886 canvas, 'The attack on General Sir John McNeil's force near Suakim' (Duke of Edinburgh's Royal Regiment). The former picture resulted from his activities in the Zulu War which he recounted in an article published in 1900. He arrived at Durban on March 20th, 1879 and joined Lord Chelmsford's column for the relief of Etshowe. Fripp witnessed an attack on the British camp on April 2nd, and Chelmsford's successful relief of Pearson's force at Etshowe. Later he was in the column that discovered the body of the Prince Imperial which he vividly described, and his final account was of the battle at Ulundi which he sketched as he lay on the leather roof of an ammunition cart. He wrote: Now and again a bullet sighed overhead as I watched the beautiful advance of the enemy rapidly spreading over the undulations, disappearing and reappearing as the inequalities were traversed. The landscape in the Isandhlwana picture was drawn, no doubt, on the spot. Similarly the Suakim picture was a result of his participation with General Graham's second expedition from which he submitted many sketches which appeared in the Graphic.