Feature: Inspiration for Africa
1 March 2006
'Finding Harold Copping' by Ken and Sheila Wilson (Shoreham and District Historical Society 2005) tells the story of painter Harold Copping (1863–1932), an obscure figure now, but who was once known throughout the world for his biblical illustrations. Meanwhile, a striking analysis of his career by Dr Sandy Brewer, 'From Darkest England to the Hope of the World: Protestant pedagogy and the visual culture of the London Missionary Society', was published in 'Material Religion' (2005;1:98–123).
The publications reveal that Copping was much valued by the missionary societies, who commissioned him for works that were widely reproduced as posters, handouts, lantern slides and magazine illustrations.
Copping's painting 'The Hope of the World' (1914), now lost, showing Jesus Christ talking to a group of children from different continents, was one of the best-known and best-loved paintings in the world. It was not approved of by everyone, however, as the African child was set slightly apart from the others, and whereas the Asian, Australasian, American and European children were shown in their national dress, the African boy was naked.
It may have been to compensate for this that the London Missionary Society commissioned Copping in 1916 to paint what is now the Wellcome Library picture 'The Healer', set in Africa. An idealised white missionary, guided by Christ standing behind him, applies western medical knowledge to the healing of a sick African child. The missionary has a medicine chest identical in type to the Tabloid medicine chests, which the firm of Burroughs Wellcome made for explorers and missionaries. In the foreground is a horn used in African medicine for cupping, here significantly discarded. The missionary was perhaps modelled on explorer Sir Henry Morton Stanley.
As the Wilsons discovered, "When Dr Geoffrey D Lehmann and his wife Monica opened their hospital in the foothills of the Himalayas, he took with him a set of Copping pictures printed on lantern slides. Every Sunday, when weather permitted, Dr Lehmann showed the villagers the slide show, with stories from the Bible. They liked the picture of Jesus behind the missionary doctor".
The painting was thought to have been destroyed in the Blitz, but actually survived and spent much of its life at the 'Livingstonia' Missionary School of Tropical Diseases in Cambridge. It later passed to the Wellcome Library and seems to be Copping's only surviving 'missionary' oil painting.
