Conflicting Views: Pacifist Artists

This talk examines the experiences of British painters and sculptors, who were conscientious objectors (CO) and pacifists in the two World Wars through to the work in the 1960s of Scottish-Irish artist William Crozier who was greatly impacted by both wars and in particular seeing films of the liberation of the prison camps in 1945. Attention will be directed for example to Mark Gertler’s anti-war masterpiece Merry-Go-Round (1916) which typifies how some artists used their creativity to express their pacifist stance and their refusal to support Britain’s involvement in the war. Artwork from members of the Bloomsbury Group conveys their staunch refusal to cooperate in the war effort. Percy Horton took the radical stance of an absolutist CO and was imprisoned revising his stance in World War II with the burgeoning threat of Nazism. Sven Berlin registered as a CO but after witnessing the attacks on convoys in the Atlantic…