Imperial War Museum, London

This splendid museum is running an exhibition of Brit, Australian and Canadian art from WW2, including my favorite modern painting.


“Battle of Britain” by Paul Nash employs an airborne perspective, and he wrote of it:

The painting is an attempt to give the sense of an aerial battle in operation over a wide area and thus summarizes England’s great aerial victory over Germany.

The scene includes certain elements constant during the Battle of Britain – the river winding from the town and across parched country, down to the sea; beyond, the shores of the Continent; above, the mounting cumulus concentrating at sunset after a hot brilliant day; across the spaces of sky, trails of airplanes, smoke tracks of dead or damaged machines falling, floating clouds, parachutes, balloons.

The Museum has a permanent Holocaust exhibition, which is moving and relevant. In a recording, an Israeli who survived Auschwitz as a child regrets that it left him unable to forgive any wrong. The State of Israel collectively works the same, as its tormentors have learned to their cost and will learn in the future.

The main exhibition includes a weapons system that Mrs G helped develop, now an historic artifact. None of mine are shown – possibly they’re not worthy of note, but I hope because they’re still in use.