Essential Information
| Type | |
|---|---|
| Location | |
| Date and Times | Wednesday 28 June | 1pm-1.30pm |
| Prices | Free |
This free talk will look at two portraits of sailors, one from World War I, the other from World War II. Both are examples of official war art.
The World Wars heralded a fundamental shift in the relationship between art and war. For the first time in British history, the government sponsored artists to represent subjects related to the conflict for public display and reproduction.
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Portraits produced through this initiative commemorated the valuable contributions that ordinary people were making to the war effort, but they were also used for propaganda purposes, presenting their subjects as general examples of loyalty and patriotism.
The two examples discussed in this talk show how this process worked to create images that are both poignantly personal and strangely depersonalised.
About the speaker
Dr Katherine Gazzard is Curator of Art (post-1800) at Royal Museums Greenwich. She has taught courses on art history and museum studies for the University of East Anglia and Yale University. Her research focusses on 18th-century British art, especially portraiture, and the cultural history of the Royal Navy.
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A Sea of Faces
This talk is part of ‘A Sea of Faces’, a series of events celebrating portraiture. Royal Museums Greenwich hold the third largest collection of portraits in the UK. Strengths of our collection include naval and royal portraits, but there are also many unexpected gems.
Royal Museums Greenwich is taking part in 'Portrait Mode' with the National Portrait Gallery throughout June and July. The National Portrait Gallery is encouraging everyone to get into 'Portrait Mode' this summer to mark the reopening of the Gallery on 22 June following a major transformation project.
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