16 February 2016

Truth and Memory
25 March – 4 September 2016

The largest exhibition of British First World War Art for almost 100 years will be on show at York Art Gallery in 2016.

The major retrospective comprises of more than 60 artworks from IWM (Imperial War Museums) and will feature some of the most iconic images to emerge from the First World War, including paintings by Paul Nash, Percy Wyndham Lewis, CRW Nevinson, Stanley Spencer and William Orpen, as well as lesser known, yet significant works, by artists such as Anna Airy and George Clausen.

Entitled Truth and Memory, many of the paintings were shown last year at IWM London to mark the centenary of the beginning of the First World War. York Art Gallery is the only other venue to be hosting the exhibition, which will include a new thematic display as well as works from the York Art Gallery’s permanent collection.

Laura Turner, senior curator of art for York Museums Trust, said:

“We are thrilled to welcome some of the most iconic paintings of the First World War to York as part of this major exhibition. York is the only other venue to host this incredibly moving collection of works which have helped shape the nation’s perception of the conflict and war itself.”

Richard Slocombe, Senior Curator of Artat IWM, said:

“York Art Gallery has given us a fantastic and very different space to present this exhibition, allowing us to show some of the larger works together for the first time since the Royal Academy’s show. The Nation’s War Paintings in 1919. Throughout, I have looked for links to tie the works more closely to Yorkshire, whether this be the painting of the casualties from the Battle of the Somme arriving at Charing Cross Station, which was painted by Huddersfield artist J Hodgson Lobley, or works shown in the Paul Nash retrospective at Temple Newsam in 1943.”

The exhibition will assess both the immediate impact and legacy of British art of the First World War. Comprised predominantly of works from IWM’s Art Collection, the exhibition will show how artists of all ages, traditions and backgrounds, strived to represent the unprecedented, epoch-defining events of the First World War. The York show presents a new interpretation of the original hang in London, displaying works by the thematically as opposed to chronologically. It will also include three of York’s works: Richard Jacks’ Return to the Front and Passing of the Chieftain and Sydney Carline’s The Trail of War.

This collaboration with York Museums Trust was inspired by the First World War Centenary Partnership, a network of over 3,400 cultural and educational organisations from 57 countries, that led by IWM.

Truth and Memory is included in the York Art Gallery admission price, which is free to YMT Card holders.

At the turn of the last century, art in Britain held a position and status in society quite different from today and was often regarded as having a social function. In particular, images of warfare imparted notions of identity, culture and morality, enshrining these as the ‘truth’. However, in a conflict where the soldiers themselves were the ‘artists’ a very different idea of war emerged. The first rooms of the exhibition will focus on the works of those artists who experienced life on the front line, first-hand. In their quest to comprehend and give meaning to a modern and unfamiliar war, young British ‘serving’ artists, challenged established ideas of war and redefined notions of the ‘truth’ in art.

Prior to the war, artists like CRW Nevinson and Wyndham Lewis were keen to embrace the energy and violence of the modern age, but their experiences of the First World War rapidly changed this world view. Their depictions of trenches and soldiers are reduced to a series of angular shapes and definitions between human flesh and heavy artillery become intentionally unclear.

Paul Nash’s interpretations of Western Front landscapes show a despairing view of war. His iconic, We Are Making a New World, 1918, shows the violation of the landscape as a metaphor for the force of war and the cost to humanity.

Other rooms in the will look at how British art met the challenge of commemorating the First World War and how this helped form the collective memory of the war as we know it today. In doing so, it will address why some pictures have seemed to transcend definitions of art and come to epitomise the slaughter and sacrifice of the First World War. Focusing on both official and independent works produced enduring the war and in its immediate aftermath, this section of the exhibition will early attempts by British artists to convey the tragedy of the First World War and to build a lasting memorial to the nation’s sacrifice.

George Clausen’s Youth Mourning, 1916, offers an alternative response to the tragedy of the First World War, motivated by the death of Clausen’s daughter’s fiancé. Painted when in his sixties and in stark contrast to his nostalgic impressions of rustic English life, the allegorical form of a young woman set against a desolate barren landscape, emphasises the rawness of grief and emptiness of death.

The exhibition will also consider art created in response to the home front and in particular the contribution of women in works such as Anna Airy’s images of war production. The chaos of the factory floor reveals the dangerous conditions many women endured in supporting and sustaining the nation’s war effort.

The main section of the exhibition will focus on the ambitious plans of Lord Beaverbrook’s British War Memorials Committee and the Imperial War Museum, to build an artistic record of the nation’s war in the form of a Hall of Remembrance. Key commissioned paintings, such as Paul Nash’s canvas The Menin Road, will be displayed alongside important sculptural works like Jacob Epstein’s The Tin Hat. The exhibition includes William Orpen’s controversial painting, To the Unknown British Soldier in France, revealing the artist’s disillusionment with the machinations of the triumphant Allied leaders.

Truth and Memory will act as testament to the huge artistic outpouring in Britain instigated by the all-encompassing, all-consuming nature of the First World War.