This exhibition complemented the display of John Walker’s paintings about World War I. Official government recruiting posters from the early years of the war, as well as a selection from the Center’s prints, drawings, and paintings by artists such as C. R. W. Nevinson, Paul Nash, Duncan Grant, Frank Brangwyn, James McBey, and Joseph Pennell, provided the backdrop to the works of the featured “soldier poets.”
The poetic response to the war reflected a range of moods from the early sentimentality and patriotic ardor of Rupert Brooke to the cynicism, resignation, and the angry depiction of life in the trenches by Wilfred Own, Siegfriend Sassoon, Robert Graves, David Jones, and others. Civilian life in Britain was examined, particularly the roles played by women on the home front and at the battlefield. The annotated first editions, manuscripts, posters, and ephemeral material were selected from libraries at Yale and from a number of private collections.
The relatively new medium of film played a growing role in both military and civilian life during the period of World War I. A short selection of newsreel footage was shown in the exhibition, along with screenings of the films The Battle of the Somme (1916) and The Battle of Ancre (1917).
View works from the collection included in this exhibition here.
Credits
The exhibition was organized by Elisabeth Fairman, Curator of Rare Books and Archives at the Center.