BRITAIN AT WAR
Monroe Wheeler [Editor], T. S. Eliot, E. McKnight Kauffer
Monroe Wheeler [Editor], T. S. Eliot, Herbert Read, E. J. Carter, Carlos Dyer [Text]: BRITAIN AT WAR. New York: Museum of Modern Art, May 1941. Quarto. First edition [10,000 copies]. Decorated paper covered boards designed by E. McKnight Kauffer. Photo illustrated dust jacket. 98 pp. 106 black and white plates and one color plate. The uninspiring dust jacket nicked and torn along top edge. Stunning McKnight Kauffer boards fresh and clean. Gutters faintly browned. A nearly fine copy in a very good dust jacket.
7.75 x 10.25 hardcover books with 98 pages and 106 black and white plates and one color plate. Classic pictorial front cover by American expatriate E. McKnight Kauffer. Edited by Monroe Wheeler. The first appearance in America of “Defense of The Islands,” an original poem by T. S. Eliot. Text by Herbert Read, E. J. Carter and Carlos Dyer. Book based on exhibition of paintings, drawings, photographs, cartoons and posters by British artists during the Second World War, with catalogue of paintings and drawings exhibited (including works by British artists of the First World War), and artists' biographies.
Features work by Edward Ardizzone, John Armstrong, Edward Bawden, Sir Muirhead Bone, Richard Eurich, Barnett Freedman, Anthony Gross, Keith Henderson, Eric Kennington, Henry Moore, Paul Nash, John Piper, R. V. Pitchforth, Eric Ravilious, Sir William Rothenstein, Graham Sutherland, Fellies Topolski and Midshipman J. Worsley, R.N.R.
A final shipment of fourteen paintings and drawings by noted British artists has Just arrived from London in time for inclusion in the exhibition Britain At War, which opens to the public Friday, May23, at the Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53 Street. The Museum announces with great pleasure that not a single shipment from London for the exhibition has been lost en route. All the paintings, cartoons, posters, photographs, films, camouflage and catalog information—the graphic record of a country at war—have safely reached their destination in the Museum. The first shipment was received the end of January with the arrival by boat of a large consignment of paintings previously shown in the National Gallery in London.
Not only by boat but also by Clipper plane, the material for this graphic record of-Britain at war reached the United States. A single plane brought twenty-three four-pound rolls of drawings, photographs and posters. Figures on the actual weight of this shipment are not available but each roll had from thirty to thirty-five dollars worth of stamps.
With the opening of the exhibition to the public on Friday, May 23, New York will have an opportunity to see the soldier and civilian armies of Britain depicted in many of the visual arts—arts which are still being carried on in wartime and which further the war effort. The last shipment, Just received by boat, includes a vivid painting by Frank Dobson of a street of collapsing buildings outlined against raging flames the night of November 24, when Bristol was almost destroyed by a raid. The artist was on the scene. A painting by John Piper shows the shattered walls of Coventry Cathedral illuminated by fire November 15, the night of the great bombardment. Three eerie drawings of London's crowded underground shelters depict ghostlike forms in vast, dimly-lit catacombs. Al-though these weird pictures resemble frightened martyrs of the early Christian era, they merely present the fantastic spectacle of civilized man in 1941 A.D. sleeping below the surface of the world's largest city, and have been drawn by the British artist, Henry Moore, whose pre-war abstract sculpture may be seen in the Museum’s sculpture garden. Also included in the shipment are portraits by Eric Kennington of famous R.A.F. flight commanders' and fighter pilots. [Museum of Modern Art press release, May 19, 1941]
As a demonstration of how a nation's artists can be used in national defense, the Museum believes this exhibition may prove useful to our own government. It has been arranged with the cooperation of Sir Kenneth Clark, Director of the National Gallery in London, who has been in charge of selecting and assembling the paintings from England. The National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa assisted by lending to the exhibition a number of paintings of the first world war.
The exhibition has been directed and installed by Monroe Wheeler, recently appointed Director of Exhibitions and Publications of the Museum.
In addition to paintings, watercolors and drawings, the exhibition includes sections devoted to camouflage, photographs, cartoons, posters and wartime industrial and architectural forms. The diagrams and models in the camouflage section have been executed by the faculty and students of the Art School of Pratt Institute, Brooklyn.
The exhibition includes the work of veterans like Sir Muirhead Bone and Sir William Rothenstein and the work of artists like Paul Nash and Eric Kennington who first made their reputation with their paintings of the last war. The work of Graham Sutherland, John Piper and Henry Moore, noted artists of the abstract and surrealist schools, is also included as well as the work of artists who have attained reputations in recent years, such as Felix Topolski, Edward Ardizzone and Anthony Gross.
In conjunction with the exhibition the Museum is publishing a catalog Britain At War to which T. S. Eliot has contributed a poem entitled Defense of the Islands. The foreword, written by Monroe Wheeler, who has also edited the catalog, is in part as follows:
"With admirable wisdom, in this war as in the last the British Government has recognized the usefulness of art to enliven the idealism with which its people are united in self-defense, to ennoble the scene of their common suffering and to provide visual imagery of their great cause and their peril. . . .
"Within two months of the declaration of the present war, a committee was formed under the chairmanship of Sir Kenneth Clark, Director of the National Gallery, to draw up a list of artists qualified to record the war at home and abroad, and to advise government departments on the selection of artists from this list and on such questions as copyright, disposal and exhibition of work and the publication of reproductions. . . .
"Artists are employed in two categories: salaried appointments for full-time work with one or another branch of the armed forces; or particular commission and purchase. . . .
"It is worthy of note how little false optimism, exaggerated pathos or wartime hatred these pictures show. There are three main divisions of subject matter: portraiture and the common people at all their tasks; destruction by and of the enemy; and the awe-inspiring martial machinery of defense. . . .
"The honor the British have done their artists in summoning them to a particular role in the national defense may provide for us an object-lesson at a time when our own government is beginning the various enrollment of its citizens. No one pretends any more that international political issues and armed conflict are none of the artist’s business. Like another man, he may be required to fight, and if his country loses, he may lose all that makes art possible. It would be tragic neglect, on the other hand, for anyone to be indifferent to the arts and the fate of artists in these times. . . .
"Those whose work is shown in this exhibition have fought well without guns."
Under the title The War As Seen By British Artists, Herbert Read, London art critic and author, has contributed an article in which he writes in part as follows:
"The Ministry of Information lost no time at the beginning of this war in enlisting artists. Leading painters and draughtsmen were appointed as official artists to the Navy, the Army and the Air Force. These artists wear uniforms, and live and work with the various units to which they are attached. They may, indeed, go into action with those units and see the worst—and the best—of the war with their own eyes. Other artists are commissioned to do special Jobs on the civilian front—in the armament factories or the air-raid shelters; and any artist may submit work to a committee of the Ministry of Information who will purchase it for the nation if it is considered of sufficient interest. Already, after little more than a year of the war, a very impressive collection of war pictures has been built up. In fact the National Gallery, with this exhibition of pictures and its mid-day concerts of classical music, has become a defiant outpost of culture, right in the midst of the bombed and shattered metropolis.
"It is not for an Englishman to praise these pictures for the spirit they represent, but one final word of explanation. It may be that the general effect will strike the American visitor as tame or subdued, as too quiet and harmonious for the adequate representation of war. It must then be remembered that though the English are energetic in action, they are restrained in expression. Our topical poetry is lyrical, not epical or even tragic. Our Typical music is the madrigal and the song, not the opera and the symphony. Our typical painting is the landscape. In all these respects War cannot change us, and we are fighting this war precisely because in these respects we refuse to be changed. Our art is the exact expression of our conception of liberty: the free and unforced reflection of ail the variety and eccentricity of the individual human being."[Museum of Modern Art press release, May 21, 1941]