This Masters of Arts Research comprises a creative component, a novella, titled, A Realist at War, which explores the effects of the Second World War on a group of Australian artists and an accompanying exegesis that examines the interrelationship between art and authenticity when researching and writing historical fiction. The act of inserting a fictitious narrative into historical events presented an opportunity to further research the field of historical fiction. Based on the research undertaken for writing A Realist at War, this exegesis will consider the existing literature on methodology for writing historical fiction, particularly analysing contemporary authors that revisit the past in the context of the Second World War.

A Realist at War presents a fictional account from 1941, during the Second World War, of two Australian official war artists in North Africa and the Middle East. In Australian art history, the development of art during the Second World War focuses on a core group of modernists, the Heide group, whose members challenged the perceived conservatism of the official war art scheme (Haese, 1981). However, my novella is a fictitious cultural counterpoint to that dominant narrative through the experience of two official war artists, Kurt and George, as told through the letters to a mutual love interest, Meg, who resides in Adelaide, then Owen, South Australia. The experience of the official war artists, considering character, influences, and ambitions, presents a rich era in Australian art and military history to research, analyse, and re-present in a creative act, thus the realisation of the novella, A Realist at War. [...]