New exhibition: Art from Ammunition

Art from Ammunition: Trench Art from the First World War is now on display at Compton Verney until December 14

When the First World War began in Europe in the summer of 1914, the Arts and Crafts movement and the Art Nouveau style were the height of fashion.  The armies that faced each other on the Western Front included all kinds of craftsmen and collectors from across the world. Almost immediately, souvenirs were created and distributed, as soldiers and civilians on both sides began to make objects as a way of recording and dealing with their experiences.  As the fighting continued over the next four years, and more countries became involved in the war, a huge variety of Folk Art objects were made on an unprecedented scale, which soon became known as ‘Trench Art’.

As Nicholas Saunders noted in 2001, Trench Art could be ‘Any item made by soldiers, prisoners of war and civilians, from war material directly, or any other material, as long as it and they are associated temporally and/or spatially with armed conflict or its consequences.’

The industrialized nature of the first truly global war meant that ammunition was used on a scale never previously seen; this in turn provided the raw materials needed to create an extraordinary array of trench art.

This exhibition displays the wide variety of objects created during the First World War by soldiers, prisoners of war, civilian internees and refugees. The objects here come from over 25 of the countries directly involved in the war, and most are by unknown artists. Particularly striking is the length of time it would have taken to create these objects, many of which have place names, dates and other details painstakingly etched onto them.

Trench art continues a tradition of creating wartime souvenirs that dates back to the early eighteenth century and which continues to this day. The pieces exhibited often reflect the very personal stories of individuals behind the experience of modern warfare.

Open 11am – 5pm until December 14

This display would not have been possible without the generosity of James Gordon-Cumming, who has loaned the objects seen here, and the Great War Forum, which provided information about some of those objects. The display has been organized by James Gordon-Cumming and by Annelise Hone, Exhibitions & Collections Manager at Compton Verney, and is part of the national programme to commemorate the start of the First World War.

Supported by the HLF scheme ‘Then & Now’.