Conflicting Views: Pacifist Artists

The focus is on British artists during two World Wars through to the work in the 1960s of Scottish-Irish artist William Crozier who was greatly impacted by both wars and in particular seeing films of the liberation of the prison camps in 1945. Post-War Crozier produced a memorable series of paintings of skeletal figures in the landscape, which show a continuing preoccupation with the brutality of warfare. Mark Gertler’s anti-war masterpiece Merry-Go-Round (1916) typifies how some artists used their creativity to express their pacifist stance and their refusal to support Britain’s involvement in the war.