Carl Miller on The War Dead and Wounded

Conflict of Interest

What did artists and photographers choose to show us of the horrors of the front line? And how did Governments seek to curb what its citizens could see?

Carl Miller (The Kill List) travels from the trenches of France to modern day Iraq, via the paintings and photography on display at the Blavtnik Art, Film and Photography Galleries at Imperial War Museum, London.

Guiding Carl’s journey is Claire Brennard, Art Curator at IWM London, and Professor Ana Carden-Coyne, Director of the Centre for the Cultural History of War in Manchester -  encountering artistic works that have rarely been seen by the public.

Objects Discussed:

John Singer Sargent, Gassed, 1919

 Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson, The Doctor, 1916

 Stanley Spencer, Travoys Arriving with Wounded at a dressing-station at Smol, Macedonia, September 1916, 1919

Francis Dodd, An Operation at the Military Hospital, Endell Street, Dr Louisa Garrett Anderson, Dr Flora Murray, Dr Winifred Buckley, 1920

 Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson, Paths of Glory, 1917

 William Orpen, Dead Germans in a Trench, 1918

 Steve McQueen, Queen and Country, 2008

Narrator:  James Taylor. Producer: Matt Hill at Rethink Audio, with support from Eleanor Head, Daniel BenChorin, and the IWM Institute team at Imperial War Museums