Aftermath: Art in the Wake of World War One

Marking one hundred years since the end of the First World War, Aftermath: Art in the Wake of World War One explores how memories of the war were filtered through specific cultural forms and political agendas in the years between 1916 and 1932. During this tumultuous period, artists began to explore new imagery, and new ways of making art in their responses to the experiences of war, the process of memorialisation and the rebuilding of cities and societies. This paperback exhibition book contains specially commissioned essays to examine the culture of mourning, remembrance and the social impact of the First World War through the interaction between artists, politics and city spaces. Broadening the examination of war and memory beyond the modernist canon to show how both traditional and avant-garde art formed part of this process, Aftermath explores how dada and surrealism grew out of artists’ memories of war and the parallel resurgence of realism in the ‘Return to Order’. Emma Chambers is Curator, Modern British Art at Tate.