News

Free monthly talks on art and the First World War at Leeds Art Gallery continue on 4 November, 18-19.00, with a talk that sheds new light on the impact the First War had on sculptor Henry Moore.

A new online course about how the First World War changed traditional views of heroism is launched today by the University of Leeds, in partnership with the BBC. Starting in October, World War One: Changing Faces of Heroism, is a free online course that looks at the emergence of new kinds of heroes and heroines, such as ordinary ‘Tommies’ and front-line nurses, as well as alternative hero figures including anti-war campaigners. The three week course explores art, literature, film and television, where people will learn about the portrayals of heroism before, during and since the war. The course draws on the expertise of academics behind the University’s Legacies of War centenary project, as well as interviews, film and images from the BBC’s archives and the University’s Liddle Collection. Learners will also look at the war from a range of perspectives, with University of Leeds experts leading them through the changing British, French and German views of heroism.

Art historian Richard Cork kicks off a series of eight talks about war and art at Leeds Art Gallery today. These free talks are open to all with an interest in how the First World War impacted on artists and their work and how art has been part of remembering the war.

Staff and students from The Skipton Academy (formerly Aireville School) will be marking the 100th anniversary since the end of Craven’s First World War recruitment campaign with two special performances of their acclaimed production of Tunstill’s Men in the grounds of Skipton Castle this Friday (19 Sept) and Saturday (20 Sept).

In 1914 the young men and women of Huddersfield Socialist Sunday School believe passionately in a better world. Inspired by the revolutionary art, music and literature of the times, Arthur Gardiner and Percy Ellis refuse to take arms against their fellow workers and fight in the First World War.

The names of twenty-five men from Leeds who served in the Great War are being added to the University of Leeds’ Brotherton War Memorial.

As part of the commemorations for the centenary of the First World War and her contribution to the University of Leeds’s Legacies of War project, Dr Claudia Sternberg at the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies developed a module called ‘Beyond the Trench: Collaborative Projects on the History, Remembrance and Critical Heritage of the First World War’.

A history project group was formed in early July 2014 as part of The Mount School York’s ‘Poppies and Pacifism’ Creative Arts Festival. The project began with a visit to York Minster in First World War costume. Girls saw the Five Sisters’ window and heard the story of how it became the memorial to the women of the British Empire who died in the First World War.

Cynthia Rushton has been researching the 48 men from Meanwood who lost their lives in the Great War and whose names are on the wooden Memorial on Green Road. With the Meanwood Village Association she has managed to secure a grant of £7500 to provide and erect a new metal plaque with their names on, a Memorial Avenue of trees to be planted in Meanwood Park (site yet to be agreed) and a book to be published about the men, their families, occupations, the medals they won and the impact the First World War had on the community of Meanwood.

A composition by Dr Martin Watson, a former student of music at University of Leeds, will be performed as part of the WWI centenary.