A major exhibition looking back at the First World War work of modernist painter Wyndham Lewis is among the special events announced by the Imperial War Museum in its centenary year.
The display at IWM North in Manchester will mark the commissioning of Lewis as an official war artist in 1917, the same year as the Imperial War Museum’s foundation ‘to record the events still taking place during the Great War.’
IWM’s centenary programme also includes a London exhibition exploring the evolution of anti-war protest from WW1 to the present day.
Wyndham Lewis: Life, Art War, opening at IWM North in June, will feature more than 150 artworks, books, journals and pamphlets, drawn from public, private, national and international collections.
Wyndham Lewis, founder of the Vorticism avant-garde movement, was a radical force in British art and literature.
The forthcoming exhibition will be the first major UK retrospective of his work in almost 40 years, IWM says.
Works by two other noted Great War artists, Paul Nash and CRW Nevinson, will feature in IWM London’s exhibition People Power: Fighting for Peace, exploring 100 years of British anti-war protest.
The modern peace movement was ‘kick started’ in the UK by the Government’s introduction of compulsory military service in 1916, IWM notes. Unlike the great powers of continental Europe, Britain went to war with a volunteer army in 1914.
Beginning with WW1, the exhibition will include personal letters and other items revealing the hostility and punishment faced by the first conscientious objectors.
People Power: Fighting for Peace is at IWM London from 23 March- 28 August 2017.
Wyndham Lewis: Life, Art War will be presented at IWM North, Manchester, from 23 June 2017-January 2018.
2017 is also the 100th anniversary of Duxford airfield near Cambridge, now the site of IWM Duxford. Details of the centenary programme will be published later.
Source: Imperial War Museums (IWM)
Images: Centenary News
Posted by: CN