Painters and the Great War: commissions, production and collections. Towards a comparative history

Painters and the Great War: commissions, production and collections. Towards a comparative history

Veranstalter
An international conference organized by the CREA research centre (Université Paris Ouest-Nanterre), the BDIC (Bibliothèque de documentation internationale contemporaine) and the Musée de l’Armée, Paris; Organizing committee: Anne-Pascale Bruneau-Rumsey, Senior Lecturer in English, Paris Ouest-Nanterre, CREA–EA370; Séverine Letalleur-Sommer, Senior Lecturer in English, Paris Ouest-Nanterre, CREA–EA370; Dominique Bouchery, Curator of German Collections, BDIC; Benjamin Gilles, Head of Periodicals and Digital Collections, BDIC; François Lagrange, Head of historical research and educational programmes, Musée de l'Armée
Veranstaltungsort
Université Paris Ouest-Nanterre – Musée de l’Armée, Paris
Ort
Paris, Nanterre
Land
France
Vom - Bis
04.12.2014 - 06.12.2014
Deadline
15.01.2014
Website
Von
Anne-Pascale Bruneau-Rumsay, Séverine Letalleur-Sommer

In Great Britain, France and Germany, during the First World War and the years immediately following it, thousands of artworks were created as artists attempted to represent the conflict. Some works concentrated on the representation of combat on different fronts, on life in the trenches, on human and material destruction and the devastation of the landscape, while others looked to the home front and changes in the organization of society, and still others opted for a more elliptical or even allegorical approach to the conflict and its consequences. Paintings, drawings and engravings were executed by artists of all tendencies, some well-known, some less so, some volunteers, some conscripts, some on official assignment with the army, and some non-combatants. As the conditions in which the works were produced varied, so did the conditions of their diffusion and reception, during the conflict, in the years that followed and over the course of the century that has elapsed since then.

In Great Britain, significant scholarly attention has been paid to painters’ representations of the Great War. This has given rise not only to chapters within monographs devoted to artists who experienced the conflict, but also to studies which have examined the conditions under which these representations were created, notably in the context of official commissions (Harries & Harries, Malvern, Viney). Numerous painters were recruited as war artists under government schemes that continued into the post-war period and led to the constitution of significant public collections. The Imperial War Museum, which was established in 1917 and opened to the public in 1920, became a major organ of diffusion of these works – works to which some artists, such as Paul Nash and Christopher Nevinson, partly owe their fame.

War artist programmes also existed in France and Germany, organized in different ways, specific to the national context. In France, the Bibliothèque de documentation internationale contemporaine or BDIC (formerly the Bibliothèque-Musée de la Guerre) and the Musée de l’Armée have significant holdings of paintings, prints and drawings that were acquired by the French state or donated at the Armistice; some were executed by artists on official assignment, such as Denis, Vallotton, Bonnard and Vuillard, and others by conscripts, including Léger, Dunoyer de Segonzac and Friesz. Many works remain in private collections.

In Germany, painting was utilized to glorify national culture, and exhibitions were among the cultural activities organized to that end in neutral countries. Official war artists’ paintings of the Front were the subject of new attention in an exhibition held at the State Museum in Oldenburg in 2008 (catalogue ed. Bernd Küster); more extensively studied are Expressionist painters’ denunciations of the horrors of the trenches, notably the work of Beckmann and Dix, and the critique of State values carried out by Zurich-based Dada artists. German art of the First World War has been principally studied within monographs, but has also been the object of several overviews (Gerster and Helbling, Gölss, Jürgens-Kirchhoff). Numerous works are held by military museums, notably the Bavarian Army Museum in Ingolstadt; others are in art museums and private collections.

Contemporary interpretations of painters’ relation to the War have drawn, to a significant extent, on the participation (or non-participation) of major painters – in particular those linked to avant-garde movements – in the representation of the conflict, whether in a private capacity or in order to carry out commissions; also significant has been the question of access to the works produced. Philippe Dagen has argued that in France these artists remained “silent” on the subject of the First World War. Can this silence be explained by painting’s not disposing of methods adequate to the subject, by the unrepresentable nature of the Great War, and by the fragmentation of avant-garde movements, or should analysis attend rather to such questions as public commissions, the conditions of reception and ways in which public collections were created in the different countries, and to the differing status of the avant-garde in each?

This international conference takes as its subject the representations of the First World War by painters who experienced it. It will consider the works produced, and the conditions of their production, diffusion and reception. The principal focus will be on France, Great Britain and Germany, but the conference will also be open to broader comparisons with other countries engaged in the conflict, including Italy, Russia, Belgium, Austria, the United States, Canada and Australia. Particular attention will be given to the institutional context of works’ production and diffusion, in connection with other themes and approaches.

Proposals for papers will be welcome on topics including, but not limited to, the following:

- The uses and ends of artists’ representations of the War; private and public uses ; spontaneous productions versus works produced to commission; documenting, comment, censorship, propaganda; pacifism; public expectations; testimony and the construction of memory
- Representing extreme experiences
- The artist’s relationship to his/her work: journals and artists’ writings
- Material and political constraints ; the time and timing of creation
- Comparative approaches to the different programmes of commissions and war artists schemes; the role of the State
- The relation to tradition, to art movements, to affiliations; the question of the possibility of modern history painting
- Means of diffusion: galleries, books, the Press, public collections ; collecting policies.

Abstracts in English or French (around 300 words) should be sent with a short biographical note to Anne-Pascale Bruneau-Rumsey mailto:anne-pascale.bruneau@u-paris10.fr and Séverine Letalleur-Sommer mailto:severineletalleur@gmail.com before January 15, 2014. Notification of acceptance by the scientific committee will be sent by February 28, 2014.

Papers and discussion will be held in French and English.

A volume of selected papers from the conference is planned for publication following examination by the scientific committee.

Organizing committee:
Anne-Pascale Bruneau-Rumsey, Senior Lecturer in English, Paris Ouest-Nanterre, CREA–EA370
Séverine Letalleur-Sommer, Senior Lecturer in English, Paris Ouest-Nanterre, CREA–EA370
Dominique Bouchery, Curator of German Collections, BDIC
Benjamin Gilles, Head of Periodicals and Digital Collections, BDIC
François Lagrange, Head of historical research and educational programmes, Musée de l'Armée

Scientific committee:
Annette Becker, Professor of History, Paris Ouest-Nanterre, HAR–EA4414
Anne-Pascale Bruneau-Rumsey, Senior Lecturer in English, Paris Ouest-Nanterre, CREA–EA370
Cornelius Crowley, Professor of English, Paris Ouest-Nanterre, Director of CREA–EA370
David Guillet, Deputy Director of the Musée de l’Armée
Juliane Haubold-Stolle, Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin
Ségolène Le Men, Professor of Art History, Paris Ouest-Nanterre, HAR–EA4414
Marielle Silhouette, Professor of Theatre Studies, Paris Ouest-Nanterre, HAR, CEREG–EA4223
Valérie Tesnière, Director of the BDIC, Professor, EHESS

Programm

Kontakt

Anne-Pascale Bruneau-Ramsay, Séverine Letalleur-Sommer
Département d’études anglophones, UFR LCE, bâtiment V
200 avenue de la République
92001 Nanterre Cedex
anne-pascale.bruneau@u-paris10.fr
severineletalleur@gmail.com


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