Witness: Women War Artists at Imperial War Museum North 5th February to 19th April

A major new exhibition explores wars of the 20th century though the eyes of female war artist.

The first major exhibition of its kind for over 50 years, Witness: Women War Artists is a landmark event bringing together a diverse and exciting collection of over 100 works by more than 25 female artists exploring wars from the First World War to the Kosovo conflict.

Throughout the last century, female artists have created a hugely diverse range of works that capture and interpret conflict across the world. This exhibition brings together a selection of some of the most compelling artworks displayed thematically and created by both official and unofficial war artists.

Juxtaposing official commissions of agreed subjects with secret and provocative interpretations of war, the exhibition explores and illuminates the role of female war artists alongside the wider female experience of conflict. Highlights include work by Anna Airy, who was one of the first women officially commissioned during the First World War, and Mary Kessell’s emotional depictions of German refugees in the Second World War through to Linda Kitson’s images of the Falklands and Frauke Eigen’s searing photographs responding to the exhumation of mass graves in Kosovo.

All the works on display are from Imperial War Museum’s collection, which is internationally recognised as one of the most important collections of war art in the world, and many are showing in public for the first time. This exhibition is moving, challenging and provocative, and is a timely recognition of the importance of the work created by female war artists around the world.