Abstract
In March 1918, the imperative grew to memorialise the thousands of British nationals who had sacrificed their lives in the First World War. There was also a need to find ways to remember the multitudes of the missing who would never have a known grave. In response, key figures within the British government and cultural elite instigated one of the country’s most ambitious art commissioning programmes ever, managed by the fated British War Memorials Committee. This chapter explores the short history of this scheme and analyses it as a national artistic and cultural response to the First World War. It also interrogates the reasons for its demise.
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Notes
- 1.
Typed copy of Muirhead Bone letter to the Art Committee (Imperial War Museum [IWM]), undated (c. January 1919). [IWM file: ART/WA1/046/2].
- 2.
For more about the decision not to repatriate the dead, see: Jay Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 23.
- 3.
Laura Brandon, “The Canadian War Memorial that Never Was,” Canadian Military History 7, no. 4 (1998), 45–54.
- 4.
Memorandum of Proceedings of Preliminary Meeting of Imperial Permanent Memorials Committee at 2, Whitehall Gardens, SW. 6 March, 1918. [IWM file: ART/WA1/522].
- 5.
Memorandum of Proceedings of Preliminary Meeting of Imperial Permanent Memorials Committee at 2, Whitehall Gardens, SW. 6 March, 1918. [IWM file: ART/WA1/522].
- 6.
Meeting minutes: ‘British War Memorials Committee. Executive Committee. Second Meeting. 14 March 1918’. [IWM file: ART/WA1/522].
- 7.
Michael Walsh, “‘Remembering, we forget’: British art at the Armistice,” in ‘The Silent Morning: Culture and Memory After the Armistice, eds. Trudi Tate and Kate Kennedy (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2013), 270–271.
- 8.
Meeting minutes: ‘British War Memorials Committee. Executive Committee. Third Meeting. 20 March 1918’. [IWM file: ART/WA1/522].
- 9.
British War Memorials Committee (BWMC): Meeting of the Executive Committee (minutes): 10 April 1918, Wellington House. [IWM file: ART/WA1/522].
- 10.
BWMC: Meeting of the Executive Committee (minutes): 15 May 1918, Wellington House. [IWM file: ART/WA1/522].
- 11.
Sue Malvern, Modern Art, Britain and the Great War: Witnessing, Testimony and Remembrance (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2004), 16–35.
- 12.
Typed copy of Muirhead Bone letter to the Art Committee (IWM), undated (c. January 1919). [IWM file: ART/WA1/046/2].
- 13.
Memorandum of Proceedings of Preliminary Meeting of Imperial Permanent Memorials Committee at 2, Whitehall Gardens, SW. 6 March, 1918. [IWM file: ART/WA1/522].
- 14.
Malvern, Modern Art, 76.
- 15.
Malvern, Modern Art, 70.
- 16.
See, for example, Samuel Hynes, A War Imagined: The First World War and English Culture (London: The Bodley Head, 1990), 10–19.
- 17.
BWMC: Meeting of the Executive Committee (minutes): 20 March 1918, Wellington House. [IWM file: ART/WA1/522].
- 18.
These names were added to the list in the second meeting of the committee: BWMC: Meeting of the Executive Committee (minutes): 14 March 1918, Wellington House. [IWM file: ART/WA1/522].
- 19.
Kathleen Palmer, Women War Artists (London: Tate Publishing and Imperial War Museum, 2011), 9.
- 20.
Muirhead Bone, ‘Memorandum re Mr. Tonks’ (undated). [IWM file: ART/WA1/522].
- 21.
Malvern, Modern Art, 75.
- 22.
Memorandum by Arnold Bennett. British Permanent Memorials Committee. ‘The War at Home’ (9 March 1918). [IWM file: ART/WA1/522].
- 23.
Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (Mineola, New York: Dover, 2014). First published in 1860 as Die Cultur der Renaissance in Italien (Basel, Switzerland: Schweighhauser).
- 24.
Sally Hickson, “Patronage of the Arts,” Oxford Bibliographies, last modified 27 June 2017, accessed 14 December 2017, http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195399301/obo-9780195399301-0358.xml.
- 25.
Robert Ross letter to BWMC, 8 April 1918. [IWM file: ART/WA1/524].
- 26.
BWMC: Meeting of the Executive Committee (minutes): 10 April 1918, Wellington House. [IWM file: ART/WA1/522].
- 27.
From: BWMC: Meeting of the Executive Committee (minutes): 8 May 1918, Ministry of Information, Norfolk Street, Strand. [IWM file: ART/WA1/522] Apparently from discussion between Bone and Augustus John.
- 28.
Meeting minutes: ‘British War Memorials Committee. Executive Committee. Third Meeting. 20 March 1918’. [IWM file: ART/WA1/522].
- 29.
BWMC: Meeting of the Executive Committee (minutes): 10 April 1918, Wellington House. [IWM file: ART/WA1/522].
- 30.
BWMC: Meeting of the Executive Committee (minutes): 8 May 1918, Wellington House. [IWM file: ART/WA1/522].
- 31.
Alfred Yockney letter to DY Cameron, 25 September 1918. [IWM file: ART/WA1/224].
- 32.
From: Cameron, DY [IWM file: ART/WA1/224].
- 33.
Meeting minutes: ‘British War Memorials Committee. Executive Committee. Third Meeting. 20 March 1918’. [IWM file: ART/WA1/522].
- 34.
BWMC: Meeting of the Executive Committee (minutes): 22 May 1918, Wellington House. [IWM file: ART/WA1/522].
- 35.
Robert Ross letter to BWMC, 8 April 1918. [IWM file: ART/WA1/524].
- 36.
Walsh, “Remembering,” 270.
- 37.
“Application was made for the services of Mr Jacob Epstein but the War Office would not agree to his release… The Committee recommend that the War Office should be approached for the loan of Lieut. C.S. Jagger, who has been in the Army since September 1914.” Written by Arnold Bennett in 1918 ‘Ministry of Information. Pictorial Propaganda Committee. Sculpture.’ [IWM file: ART/WA1/521].
- 38.
Robert Ross letter to Arnold Bennett, 23 April 1918. [IWM file: ART/WA1/521].
- 39.
BWMC: Meeting of the Executive Committee (minutes): 22 May 1918, Wellington House. [IWM file: ART/WA1/522].
- 40.
Eitan Karol, Charles Holden (Lincolnshire: Shaun Tyas, 2007), 253.
- 41.
Karol, Charles Holden, 254.
- 42.
Meeting minutes: ‘British War Memorials Committee. Executive Committee. Third Meeting. 20 March 1918’. [IWM file: ART/WA1/522].
- 43.
Meirion Harries and Susie Harries, The War Artists: British Official War Art of the Twentieth Century (London: M. Joseph, 1983), 118.
- 44.
Malvern, Modern Art, 70.
- 45.
BWMC: Meeting of the Executive Committee (minutes): 5 June 1918, Wellington House [IWM file: ART/WA1/522].
- 46.
Pictorial Propaganda Committee (PPC) meeting (minutes), 19 June 1918, Ministry of Information, Norfolk Street, Strand: [IWM file: ART/WA1/521].
- 47.
PPC meeting (minutes), 24 July 1918, Ministry of Information, Norfolk Street, Strand. [IWM file: ART/WA1/521].
- 48.
PPC meeting (minutes), 24 July 1918, Ministry of Information, Norfolk Street, Strand. [IWM file: ART/WA1/521].
- 49.
PPC meeting (appendix to minutes), 24 July 1918, Ministry of Information, Norfolk Street, Strand. [IWM file: ART/WA1/521].
- 50.
PPC meeting (minutes), 27 November 1918, Ministry of Information, Norfolk Street, Strand. [IWM file: ART/WA1/521].
- 51.
Appendix to file. Art Section [prepared for IWM]. Ministry of Information. [IWM file: ART/WA1/521].
- 52.
Booklet produced by IWM: ‘The Nation’s War Paintings and Other Records: exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W., 12 December 1919–7 February 1920’ 2nd edition, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office (HMSO), 1920.
- 53.
See communications between Alfred Yockney and Muirhead Bone from April to December 1919. [IWM file: ART/WA1/023].
References
Brandon, Laura. “The Canadian War Memorial That Never Was.” Canadian Military History 7, no. 4 (1998).
Burckhardt, Jacob. The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. Mineola. New York: Dover, 2014.
Harries, Meirion, and Susie Harries. The War Artists: British Official War Art of the Twentieth Century. London: M. Joseph, 1983.
Hickson, Sally. “Patronage of the Arts.” Oxford Bibliographies. Last Modified 27 June 2017. Accessed 14 December 2017. http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195399301/obo-9780195399301-0358.xml.
Hynes, Samuel. A War Imagined: The First World War and English Culture. London: The Bodley Head, 1990.
Imperial War Museum. The Nation’s War Paintings and Other Records: Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W., 12 December 1919–7 February 1920, 2nd ed. London: HMSO, 1920.
Karol, Eitan. Charles Holden. Lincolnshire: Shaun Tyas, 2007.
Malvern, Sue. Modern Art, Britain and the Great War: Witnessing, Testimony and Remembrance. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2004.
Palmer, Kathleen. Women War Artists. London: Tate Publishing and Imperial War Museum, 2011.
Walsh, Michael. “‘Remembering, We Forget’: British Art at the Armistice.” In The Silent Morning: Culture and Memory After the Armistice, edited by Trudi Tate and Kate Kennedy, 263–285. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2013.
Wellington, Jennifer. Exhibiting War: The Great War, Museums and Memory in Britain, Canada and Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.
Winter, Jay. Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
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Walton, A. (2019). The Imagined Memorial Gallery: Britain’s Aspiration to Commemorate the Great War Through Art. In: Kerby, M., Baguley, M., McDonald, J. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Artistic and Cultural Responses to War since 1914. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96986-2_22
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