1917

1917 addresses the theme of artistic creation in wartime, on the scale of a single "impossible year " when the world floundered in endless, devastating conflict.
It provides an instant view of every field of creativity during this year of the First World War. It asks what such a narrow, precise context as a single year might mean for creative activity, while avoiding the pitfalls of expectations and assumptions as to the nature of wartime art.
1917 was a year of extreme diversity in artistic production, it sets out to convey this by illustrating artists' various positions relative to the battlefront and the multiple forms their work took. Alongside established artists who drew inspiration more or less directly from world affairs were the amateur artists who felt the need to respond to the trials of war through creative expression, not least in the trench art – objects made from shells and weapons. Equally important are the war artists who were sent to the front to record events and bring back images of battle, and the many individuals who, as eyewitnesses, left their memory of the conflict for posterity.