Traces of war: landscapes of the Western Front

Lovely exhibition at the Fleming Collection of photographs by Peter Catterell of how World War I battlefields look now.

These started with a visit to the Somme in 1996 to mark 90 years since the battle and to see where is Great Uncle the water-colourist William Wyatt Bagshawe died. From there he went back to old Western Front battle fields and took beautiful peaceful pictures of the sites now. Many of the pictures show how the fields still show the scars on the fighting with the line of trenches and bomb explosions showing as undulations in the ground. I loved one of a harvested crop with the lines of stubble mirroring an arm on the march or the lines of gravestones.

He also took close up still lives of items left from the fighting like pieces of barbed wire and shot bullets. These were almost abstract photographs but strangely moving to see a mangled bullet close up.

Alongside this work were picture taken by George P. Lewis of women working during World War I which Catterell had been commissioned by the Scottish National Portrait Gallery to produce prints of. I particularly like one of a rather pretty girl working in a granite works.

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