AS THEY SAW IT

ARTISTS WITNESSING WAR

Exhibition Website

Mar 5 2022 - May 29 2022

Clark Art Institute

Williamstown, MA

Visual media have long played a key role in documenting military conflict. Especially for those far from the front, eyewitness imagery is crucial to understanding what may be happening on the battlefield. Yet artists’ depictions of the wrenching conditions and consequences of war may even transcend their historical origins to become lasting monuments to suffering and sacrifice. 

This exhibition brings together a diverse selection from the Clark’s holdings: both pro- and anti-Napoleonic imagery (including Goya’s Los Desastres de la Guerra); Civil War photographs and wood engravings; and multiple perspectives on World War I. 

It also features images of Black Americans in military service, whose contribution has often been underrepresented. Spanning four centuries of European and American art (1520–1920), this exhibition shows how prints, drawings, and photographs have put a human face on the sometimes abstract idea of conflict.​

Credit: Overview from museum website

    Exhibition Venues & Dates