It’s a sad fact that, 100 years on, the thousands of monuments to the First World War in Britain are more often used for orientation – “Turn left at the war memorial” – than remembrance. Simply by becoming part of the landscape, monumental sculptures become easy to ignore. Pictures, on the other hand, are harder to walk past – and it was pictures, mainly, that the British War Memorials Committee collected for its planned Hall of Remembrance in 1918. When the plans fell apart that autumn under the stress of post-war fatigue, the newly established Imperial War Museum (IWM) in London picked up the pieces. Now the IWM has redeployed the collection in a centenary exhibition, “Truth and Memory: British Art of the First World War” (until 8 March 20
24 July 2014, The Tablet
Witnesses to destruction
Truth and Memory: British Art of the First World War – Imperial War Museum, London
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