IWM holds one of the most important collections of twentieth century British art in the world.

It includes many great works of art from the British government war art schemes of the First and Second World Wars, which employed the greatest artists of their day, including leaders of the avant garde. These included Paul Nash, C R W Nevinson, John Singer Sargent and Sir William Orpen. 

Art

'Over The Top' by John Nash

a landscape in the snow. On the left, a red earth trench lined with duckboards stretches away from the viewer. A group of soldiers clamber from the trench, going 'over the top'. Two lie dead in the trench and another has fallen lying face down in the snow. Those who have survived plod forward towards the right without looking back. They walk beneath a grey, stormy sky, with clouds from shell and gunfire in the distance.
Over the Top by John Nash.
Image: IWM (Art.IWM ART 1656)

This painting commemorates the 1st Artists Rifles involvement in an attack on the morning of 30th December, 1917, at Welsh Ridge, near Marcoing (south west of Cambrai). This was one of the artworks relocated in August 1939 to a less vulnerable site outside London when the museum activated its evacuation plan.

See object record

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