Curator aims to challenge preconceptions with works from first world war to the present
War through the eyes of men is a well-trodden artistic subject which is why the Imperial War Museum is providing something of a corrective. "I am looking to challenge some of the stereotypes and views about women war artists, yes," admitted Kathleen Palmer, curator of a new exhibition running for rest of the year.
The show, Women War Artists, explores the experiences and achievements of female artists from the first world war up to the present day.
"Women artists have certainly not been afraid to confront the horror of war," said Palmer. "There is perhaps a preconception that it's unusual for women artists to tackle these subjects but clearly that is not the case."
There are some extremely strong images in the exhibition, not least a work by Red Cross-commissioned Doris Zinkeisen who had the misfortune to see Belsen – with its 10,000 unburied corpses and 60,000 sick and starving inmates – in 1945. Her work Human Laundry, Belsen: April 1945 is arguably the most powerful of all works which emerged from the liberation of Belsen, capturing the almost industrial nature of what was going on.
The show includes well-known works by Dame Laura Knight while others are going on show for the first time, including one by Priscilla Thornycroft showing a horse impaling itself on railings after being spooked by a London air-raid warning.
Some of the more recent works include drawings by Linda Kitson, who went to the Falklands, although because she was a woman in 1982 she was not allowed overnight on troop ships. One of her drawings shows Gurkhas having weapons training in the incongruously grand surroundings of the QE2's dance hall.
The exhibits go up to Turner prize nominated Mona Hatoum, whose video piece Measures of Distance addresses her enforced separation from her family during the Lebanese civil war.
Women War Artists is at the Imperial War Museum from 9 April to 8 January 2012.