TRUTH AND MEMORY 19 JULY 2014 – 8 MARCH 2015

©IWM ART 1460

Gassed (1919) John Singer Sargent Oil on canvas

Detail: A side on view of a line of soldiers being led along a duckboard by a medical orderly. Their eyes are bandaged as a result of exposure to gas and each man holds on to the shoulder of the man in front. One of the line has his leg raised in an exaggerated posture as though walking up a step, and another veers out of the line with his back to the viewer. There is another line of temporarily blinded soldiers in the background, one soldier leaning over vomiting onto the ground. More gas-affected men lie in the foreground, one of them drinking from a water-bottle. The crowd of wounded soldiers continues on the far side of the duckboard, and the tent ropes of a dressing station are visible in the right of the composition. A football match is being played in the background, lit by the evening sun.

©IWM ART 518 ©IWM ART 1146

Paths of Glory (1917) We Are Making a New World (1918) CRW Nevinson Paul Nash Oil on canvas Oil on canvas

©IWM ART 1984 ©IWM ART 2243

In the Gun Factory at Woolwich Arsenal (1918) Oppy Wood, 1917, Evening (1918) George Clausen John Nash Oil on canvas Oil on canvas

Details: The interior of a gun factory showing the crane used to move Detail: The lower half of the composition has a view inside a trench the hot gun-barrels from the moulds. A red-hot glowing barrel can be with duckboard paths leading to a dug-out. Two infantrymen stand to seen hanging from the crane to the right of the composition. Shafts of the left of the dug-out entrance, one of them on the firestep looking sunlight stream through the upper windows, illuminating the men over the parapet into No Man's Land. There is a wood of shattered working below. trees littered with corrugated iron and planks at ground level to the right of the composition. The sky stretches above in varying shades of blue with a spectacular cloud formation framing a clear space towards the top of the composition.

©IWM ART 2268 ©IWM ART 2271

Travoys Arriving with Wounded at a Dressing-Station at Smol, Shop for Machining 15-inch Shells: Singer Manufacturing Company, Macedonia, September 1916 (1919) Clydebank, (1918) Stanley Spencer Anna Airy Oil on canvas Oil on canvas

Detail: A dressing station seen from an elevated position. Four travoys Detail: The interior view of a munitions factory showing the pulled by mules wait in line outside the dressing station. Each holds a production of 15 inch shells by women factory workers. There are wounded soldier covered in a blanket and they are attended by medical winches hanging from the ceiling and large steel shell cases sitting on orderlies. In the background is the bright glow of an operating theatre, wooden trolleys in the centre of the image. There are several women where surgery is taking place. In the lower right corner a man with his standing amongst the machinery, one to the left, and another on the arm in a sling walks away from the scene, looking back over his right. shoulder.

©IWM ART 2747 ©IWMART3819

A Battery Shelled (1919) Gassed. 'In Arduis Fidelis' (1919) Percy Wyndham Lewis Gilbert Rogers Oil on canvas Oil on canvas

Detail: Three officers stand to the left of the composition beside a pile Detail: The body of a dead soldier lying on his back on a battlefield. of ammunition boxes. Each looks in a different direction. One has his The body rests rigidly on a thick mound of mud, the feet hanging back to the viewer and looks out over the scene of the painting. There into small rain-filled crater. These craters bordered by walls of mud are marionette-like figures moving over broken ground, amongst the dominate the background. The head is turned out towards the viewer, huts and shattered trees. Streams of stylised smoke erupts from a gas mask still in place over the face. incoming shells and spreads across the sky.

©IWM ART 4438 ©IWM ART 4655

To the Unknown Soldier in France (1921-1928) Youth Mourning (1916) William Orpen George Clausen Oil on canvas Oil on canvas

Detail: A coffin holding the remains of an unknown soldier, draped in Detail: A naked young woman, personifying Youth, kneels in a grief- the Union flag, lies at the bottom of the composition. The coffin lies in stricken attitude before a wooden cross marking a grave. In the state in a richly decorated marble hall directly beneath a chandelier. distance are the flooded craters of a battlefield. There is a dark hallway in the centre with light from the archway at the far end casting a pathway to the head of the coffin.

©IWM ART 15661 © Crown Copyright / IWM (Q 48436)

The Kensingtons at Laventie (1915) View of the 's Art Gallery at South Kensington, Eric Kennington , August 1929 photograph Oil on glass

This photograph shows the art displays in the Imperial War Museum’s first Detail: A platoon of British soldiers standing in a village street. There is home the Crystal Palace, in May 1921. John Singer Sargent’s Gassed occupies an exterior whitewashed wall in the background, snow on the ground, centre stage according with the museum’s overarching message of a war debris scattered around to the right, and above, a cavalry cross in the fought for a better peace. Works by other esteemed artists, such as William top corner of the composition. The figures are loosely grouped on the Orpen’s A Peace Conference at the Quai d’Orsay (1919), are also exhibited, yet left, with one man lying sprawled on the ground below, and another works by younger artists are noticeably absent, having been lent long-term to standing off to the right. Each man stares off in a different direction. the Tate gallery. Sculpture is shown, as well as cases of commemorative Metal objects, a helmet, a fork and a belt-buckle are picked out in gold medallions, their inclusion contributing to a mood of sombre reflection. metallic paint.

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