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Commentary: Art based on military themes is well represented in St. Louis institutions

Drive through any city in the world and you will find war memorials dedicated to battles or individual war heroes. Many of the sculptures are made by famous artists. War and the military have been themes in art through the ages.

The Mildred Lane Kemper Museum at Washington University just closed an exhibition titled, "World War I: War of Images, Images of War.” The museum brochure states, "More than just a military conflict, World War I was a war of culture in which the winner would lead European nations into the twentieth century, guiding civilization in the face of modernity. It was also the first war to be fought and represented by modern artists."

Some of the featured artists were Max Beckmann, George Braque, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Ernest Ludwig Kirchner and many others. The exhibition charted a path chronologically through the relationship of artists and art to the war.

It has been announced that Soldiers Memorial in downtown St Louis which features many works of art from World War I - 1930 is getting a bright, new facelift with a lot of conservation and reorganization. A collaboration with the City of St. Louis and the History Museum has made this possible.

Jeffrey Trzeciak, Dean of the Olin Library System at Washington University says, "The Washington University Libraries are now home to more than 400 recruitment and propaganda posters produced from1914-1918, along with an array of wartime memorabilia. The collection includes images such as the iconic Uncle Sam by illustrator James Montgomery Flagg, which was a part of the Kemper's World War I exhibition.”

The National World War I Memorial is located in nearby Kansas City and a few years back, our American Kennel Club and Museum of the Dog had an exhibition titled, "Dogs of War.”

And of course the History Museum in Forest Park has an enormous collection of war related works. Here is a sampling of a few. The Mexican War Lithographs and Engravings file contains twenty-one lithographs and engravings of battle scenes, soldiers, forts and other subjects relating to the Mexican War (1846-1848), the collection contains a miniature portrait of George Rogers Clark. Clark was a Revolutionary War General and the much older brother of explorer William Clark, who owned this portrait, and another unique war related piece is a World War I Trench Art Letter Opener of Stephen Rehg. This brass letter opener with bullet shell handle and scimitar-like blade inscribed "Verdun" was purchased by Stephen Rehg as a "trench art" souvenir during World War I.

Philip Hu, Associate Curator-in-Charge in the Department of Asian Art at the Saint Louis Art Museum says, "When the topic of war and art comes up, the first thing that many people think of are arms and armor, and quite rightly so. However, there is also a great deal of art that is depicted in two-dimensional formats, in paintings, prints, drawings, lithographs, photographs, etc. The genre of war in art is quite well represented at the Saint Louis Art Museum. There are works by famous European artists such as Jacques Callot (French, 1592-1635), Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes (Spanish,1746-1828), and Max Beckmann (German,1884-1950). An early seventeenth-century Japanese eight-panel folding screen depicting the Battle of Ichi-no-tani is currently being conserved and remounted and will go on view later next year. The largest group of war related art in the museum is the Mr. and Mrs. Charles A. Lowenhaupt collection of Japanese war prints and war-related objects, most of which was donated to the museum between 2010 and 2015.”

If you check Wikipedia, it traces military works from ancient times to the present in all art forms and St Louis institutions contain great examples of military art throughout the ages.

Nancy Kranzberg has been involved in the arts community for some thirty years on numerous arts related boards.