Exhibition displays fruitof dark and creative era

ARTWORK from one of the darkest eras of recent European history go on display tomorrow in a landmark exhibition coinciding with the 70th anniversary of the Blitz.

Sheffield’s Millennium Galleries is playing host to the event, Restless Times: Art in Britain 1914 to 1945, which includes over 150 of the country’s most significant works from the period.

Many of the pieces have been loaned from London’s Tate Britain gallery and installed by Museums Sheffield’s head of curation Sian Brown and curator of visual art Louisa Briggs. A Millennium Galleries spokesman said: “The first half of the 20th Century witnessed some of the most destructive and yet creative decades in Europe’s history.

“These were momentous, brutal, but inspiring times for artists as an entire generation responded to the electric pace of change. The years between 1914 and 1945 were defined by the devastating experience of two World Wars and saw huge changes in British society.

“During wartime, Britain became a destination for displaced people across Europe. This migration brought artists from across the continent to the UK, and with them a host of new ideas which influenced their British contemporaries.”

The exhibition looks at how that era brought with it a surge of creativity that produced some of the country’s most powerful works of art.

The exhibition, which is funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, opens at Sheffield Museums’ Millennium Gallery in the city’s Arundel Gate tomorrow and runs until Sunday, January 30 next year.

Admission is free.