Commemorating Passchendaele: Home Front to Frontline

Robyn Hughes’ intense expressionist paintings commemorate the disastrous 1917 campaign in Belgium, which saw nearly 12,000 British, Australian and New Zealand casualties.

The bodies of most of these fallen men lie in a cemetery near the battlefield, over 8000 of them in unnamed graves. Robyn Hughes spent almost two years researching Passchendaele, visiting the battlefields and cemeteries, reading personal letters and diaries from the front line, newspaper articles, military dispatches and histories.

The compelling series tracks her attempt to understand what happened at Passchendaele and aims to bring those young men back from anonymity. The result is an intense and impassioned visual exploration of a war that hit close to home and still has repercussions to this day.

On the Sunday before Anzac Day (2pm 22 April), Robyn will be joined by Passchendaele Society director and historical novelist Greg Hall in a fascinating discussion about the relationship between art and war. They will explore the purposeful recording of art during war-time, artistic responses to the grandiosity of post war remembrance art, and art as a contemporary vehicle for commemoration.