Art and Citizenship in Conflict - by Lucy Curzon (Hardcover)

About the Book

Art and citizenship in conflict examines how British women war artists used visual art to question, even reframe prevailing ideas about citizenship during the Second World War. Their paintings, prints, and drawings expose the sometimes-deep contradiction laying at the intersection of being a woman and being a citizen at war.

Book Synopsis

Art and Citizenship in Conflict examines the work of women war artists in order to highlight the complexity of citizenship and gender in Britain during the Second World War. Evelyn Dunbar, Mary Kessell, Ethel Gabain, Stella Schmolle, and Laura Knight, among others, were commissioned by the War Artists' Advisory Committee (WAAC) to document the millions of women who took up sometimes unconventional roles--in agriculture, the auxiliary services, and manufacturing, among others--to support the British war effort. Indeed, their prints, drawings, and paintings were part of a broader scheme to uphold morale and promote much-needed citizen involvement on the home front. While there is growing interest, the importance of their remit in the history of the Second World War and the quality of their artistry have nonetheless not yet secured them a significant place in scholarship. Art and Citizenship in Conflict seeks to amend this gap.

From the Back Cover

Art and citizenship in conflict examines the work of British women artists who were charged with documenting the efforts of millions of their countrywomen on the home front and beyond during the Second World War.

Evelyn Dunbar, Mary Kessell, Ethel Gabain, Stella Schmolle, and Laura Knight, among others, worked under the auspices of the War Artists' Advisory Committee (WAAC) to record the labour of nurses, women in agriculture and manufacturing, and those who joined the WAAF, the ATS, or the WRNS, among other wartime positions. The visual records produced were part of a broader scheme to uphold morale and promote much-needed service on the home front. Yet they also reveal the challenge of fulfilling the unique demands of citizenship in the context of the People's War. Women were expected to uphold conventions associated with being a wife, mother, and homemaker. And yet assembling Churchill tanks, felling trees and milking cows, and positioning anti-aircraft guns also became part of their wartime remit. The artists who undertook the representation of women's work subsequently found numerous ways--often subtle, sometimes humorous--to show the host of opposing expectations that British women faced in their efforts to be 'good' wartime citizens.

This is an essential text that combines art history, visual studies, gender history, and the history of conflict to examine, in depth, the impact of the Second World War on the lives of British women.

About the Author

Lucy D. Curzon is professor of art history at the University of Alabama