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Europe Regained

The re-hang of the Art Gallery in D West, IWM London.

This display of Second World War paintings and drawings focuses on the last two years of the war through the work of 12 artists who were eye-witnesses to the Allied invasion of Italy in 1943, the D-Day invasion of France and the ensuing battle to defeat Nazi Germany that was fought across France, the Netherlands, Italy and Austria and into Germany itself. Their view of war is anti-heroic and without glorification.

Richard Eurich observed the preparations for D-Day from his home at Dibden, near Southampton. His painting, which is a composite of different scenes, conveys the tension and expectation of this great event.
Edward Ardizzone observes human nature - soldiers looting, a woman trying to save her pig - with amused tolerance, while his paintings of Italian hill towns, briefly populated by the caravan of the advancing British Army, are undeniably lovely. 
Edward Bawden's nine large watercolours are magisterial in execution and design, and almost political in their ruthless unsentimentality.
Richard Eurich observed the preparations for D-Day from his home at Dibden near Southampton. His painting, which is a composite of different scenes, conveys the tension and expectations of this great event. 
Barnet Freedman went into France shortly after D-Day and set up his studio in a typical Henri Murger garret in a house that overlooked a vast activity at Arromanches but his painting of landing in Normandy was not completed until 1947. 
Anthony Gross was a seasoned war artist who had already covered the home front, North Africa, Middle East and Burma. He went over with the invasion troops on D-Day and followed the British Army to North Europe where he made graphic drawings of wrecked budgedt and the chaotic swirl of displaced humanity.

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