Official VE (Victory in Europe) celebrations at Government Buildings, Wellington, May 1945.

This essay originally appeared in New Zealand Art at Te Papa (Te Papa Press, 2018).

When John Pascoe’s work as illustrations editor for the 1940 centennial publication Making New Zealand came to an end in 1941, his employment with the Department of Internal Affairs was simply rolled over into that of photographer, without any apparent job description. Four years later, Pascoe proudly reported to the Prime Minister’s Department that his effort in ‘publicity work was yet more considerable than that done by the Tourist Department or by the then Director of Publicity’.1 His ‘one man service’ had supplied photographs to other government departments, as well as to overseas magazines such as Picture Post, Pix, the Illustrated London News and Sport and Country promoting government schemes such as state housing, health camps, milk and apples in schools, and physical education. And in his images of United States servicemen training here, lend-lease aid work, women in industry, coast watchers and Japanese prisoners of war, he reminded both New Zealanders and the world of the contribution this country was making at home to the war effort.

One example of Pascoe’s publicity work for the government was the photograph of physical education instructors for the Physical Welfare and Recreation Branch of the Department of Internal Affairs. The branch had been created in 1937 to improve the national fitness, and had taken a strong lead from the health and fitness programmes of the Hitler Youth movement. This fact is echoed in Pascoe’s series of low-angle, German- (or, for that matter, Soviet-) style utopian images of these instructors.

Today Pascoe’s coverage of the war’s end is most often published, particularly this photograph of Victory in Europe celebrations. It seems a sombre occasion, but news of Germany’s surrender had become public knowledge a day and a half earlier, and a degree of spontaneous celebration had occurred. This was the official occasion, designed to encourage reflection and commemoration. Pascoe recorded these formalities, but in turning his camera to the crowd he made an image that now seems to best represent the historical moment. It suggests a sober and expectant nation at a turning point, conscious that the war with Japan had no clear end, uncertain about New Zealand’s future in a post-war world, and seemingly waiting for instructions.

Athol McCredie

1 John Pascoe, memo to the Under-Secretary of Internal Affairs, 8 October 1945, 75-241-056, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington.