Beyond the Battlefields: Kathe Buchler’s Photographs of Germany in the Great War

Interesting exhibition at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery of photographs by Kathe Buchler taken in Germany during the First World War.

These were lovely sharp images of the German home front including pictures of her own family, working children and women doing the jobs of men at the front.  I loved the poignant picture of her son and a friend playing soldiers from 1909 shown with one of her daughter’s as Pierrots. I also liked the series of women doing men’s jobs including a female window cleaner. They all looked happy and empowered by their roles.

The photographs were shown alongside examples of work by British female photographers of the First World War including Christina Bloom, who I’d come across before in an exhibition of her work at the Museum of London. There was also a display of photographs of Birmingham in the First World War including one of children on a float labelled “War Made us Fatherless”.

Closed on 14 January 2018

 

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