[Skip to content] [Skip to main navigation] [Skip to quick links] [Go to accessibility information]

Art UK
Menu
SIGN IN
Search
Shop
  • About
  • Discover
  • Learn
  • Stories
  • Donate Donate

Main menu

Close
  • Home
  • Search form

    • Discover

      • Artworks
      • Artists
      • Topics
      • People
      • Art terms
      • Stories
      • Curations
    • Learn

      • Learning resources
      • The Superpower of Looking
      • Visual literacy
      • Write on Art
    • Participate

      • Tagger
      • Curate
      • Art Detective
    • Visit

      • Venues
    • Support us

      • Become a Patron
      • Our funders
    • About

      • What we do
      • Our impact
      • Who we are
      • Who funds us
    • For collections

      • Partner collections
      • Digital skills for collections
    • Shop

      • Prints
      • Art themes
      • Books
      • Gifts
      • About the shop
  • Sign in
  • Register

Remember me (uncheck on a public computer)

By signing up you agree to terms and conditions and privacy policy

Forgotten password?

Enter your email address below and we’ll send you a link to reset your password


Cancel

I agree to the Art UK terms and conditions and privacy policy

Sign up to the Art UK newsletter, a weekly edit of insightful art stories


Finding Art UK useful? Support us to keep it free.

Donate Finding Art UK useful? Support us to keep it free.

Topics

Civilians

  • Summary
1st King's Dragoon Guards, The Baggage Train
Image credit: 1st The Queen's Dragoon Guards Heritage Trust

1st King's Dragoon Guards, The Baggage Train

Henry Perlee Parker (1795–1873)

1st The Queen's Dragoon Guards Heritage Trust

Most wars badly affect civilians at home but in the art of previous centuries military subjects concentrated on the action at the front. A few eighteenth-century paintings record the activities of press gangs that forced civilians to join the forces, and by the nineteenth century the mourning of bereaved families was more frequently depicted.


The innovative war artist schemes of the First and Second World Wars deliberately included the contributions of civilians, as fire wardens, nurses, drivers and factory workers, and the effects of the blackout.

Read more
War artists documented civilian suffering through the destructive effects on towns, the landscape of the shelling on the Western Front, and of bombing raids and the evacuation of children at home.

Artworks

  • Soldiers Refreshing
    Soldiers Refreshing John Augustus Atkinson (1775–1833)
    Nottingham City Museums & Galleries
  • Bonjour Field Marshal
    Bonjour Field Marshal Joyce W. Cairns (b.1947)
    Art & Heritage Collections, Robert Gordon University
  • I'm Just Another Western Guy ...
    I'm Just Another Western Guy ... Hugh Gilmour (b.1965)
    Art & Heritage Collections, Robert Gordon University
  • Occupation Diptych: The House and the Cockerel
    Occupation Diptych: The House and the Cockerel David Henley (b.1949)
    Jersey Museum and Art Gallery
  • The Battery, Portsmouth
    The Battery, Portsmouth British School
    National Maritime Museum
  • The Sending Off, Hull Branch
    The Sending Off, Hull Branch Morris Furman (1914–1999)
    Kohima Museum
  • The 4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards Departing from the Crimea
    The 4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards Departing from the Crimea H. Quinton
    York Army Museum
  • 147 more

Stories

  • Man on Fire
    Tim Shaw's 'Man on Fire': a contemporary monument to the horror of war

    Claire English

  • 2024, painting by Wojciech Antoni Sobczyński
    Barriers and borders: an interview with Wojciech Antoni Sobczyński

    Melissa Baksh

  • Kurt Schwitters in Ambleside, and his portrait of a friend

    Kathryn Twelvetree

  • Walled in: the legacy of Henry Moore's Shelter drawings

    Eliza Goodpasture

  • Remember Belgium
    Europe in crisis: artistic responses to the invasion of Belgium

    Katy Norris

  • Lithographs from 'The Great War: Britain’s Efforts and Ideals'

    Andrew Shore

  • Rose Henriques: philanthropist, activist and painter of London's Jewish East End

    Sara Ayad

  • 'Refuge and Renewal: Migration and British Art' by Peter Wakelin
    Artist refugees and British art

    Peter Wakelin

  • 'A fabric of distant life': Jewish artists in Scotland

    Ben Reiss

  • Artists discovered among Scottish servicemen appeal records

    Jessica Evershed

  • Painting for victory: the wartime paintings of Charles Spencelayh

    Jonathan Hajdamach

  • 1769, image from 'Drawings illustrative of Captain Cook's First Voyage, 1768–1771', drawn by Tupaia (c.1725–1770), Polynesian navigator
    Captain Cook: a complex legacy

    Samuel Doering

  • A rollercoaster of a career: the figurative art of Peter Howson

    Chris Mugan

  • Drawing the home front: Enid Abrahams and women artists in the war effort

    Sarah MacDougall

  • Women of the wars: five female artists who depicted women's contributions

    Jack Lazenby

  • Old Mother Hubbard (may also be known as A Children’s Picture)
    Rediscovering Evelyn Dunbar's lost works at Pallant House Gallery

    Paul Liss

  • Christopher Nevinson's 'He Gained a Fortune but He Gave a Son'

    John G. Bernasconi

  • Randolph Schwabe: scholarly artist, meticulous draughtsman and influential teacher

    Gill Clarke

  • Women painting the First World War

    Alison Thomas

  • Frank Brangwyn's 'Mater Dolorosa Belgica'

    Carien Kremer

  • E. H. Shepard and the First World War

    James Campbell

  • Drawing in extremis: art by refugees who came to Britain

    Sarah MacDougall

  • The Neo-Romantic works of Alan Sorrell

    Sacha Llewellyn

  • Harry Bush: painter of suburban South London

    Peter Quartermaine

  • Vandalised 'Rokeby Venus', 1914
    Fighting for representation: suffragettes and art vandalism

    Victoria Ibbett

Learning resources

  • licide-lr-thumbnail-1.jpg
    Lesson plan
    'Unearthed (Lidice)' and the power of community
    • KS3 (ENG)
      KS3 (NI)
      CfE L3 (SCO)
      KS3 (WAL)
      KS4 (ENG)
      KS4 (NI)
      CfE L4 (SCO)
      CfE Sen. (SCO)
      KS4 (WAL)
  • screenshot-2021-04-13-at-16-05-28-1.png
    Video
    Sculpture in focus: 'Woman in a Bomb Blast' by F. E. McWilliam
    • KS3 (NI)
      KS4 (NI)
      CfE L3 (SCO)
      CfE L4 (SCO)
      KS3 (WAL)
      KS4 (WAL)
      KS3 (ENG)
      KS4 (ENG)
  • NID_FEMC_BANFE_2008T1-001.jpg
    Audio
    Audio description of 'Woman in a Bomb Blast' by F. E. McWilliam
    • KS5 (ENG)
      KS5 (NI)
      CfE Sen. (SCO)
      KS5 (WAL)
      KS4 (ENG)
      KS4 (NI)
      CfE L4 (SCO)
      KS4 (WAL)
  • ntv-hap-79-001-1.jpg
    Lesson plan
    The First World War in art: 'The Bombardment of the Hartlepools (16 December 1914)'
    • KS2 (ENG)
      KS2 (NI)
      CfE L2 (SCO)
      PS3 (WAL)
  • E14_CRH_S130-015.jpg
    Lesson plan
    Animate public sculpture
    • KS2 (NI)
      KS2 (ENG)
      CfE L2 (SCO)
      PS3 (WAL)
      KS3 (ENG)
      KS3 (NI)
      CfE L3 (SCO)
      KS3 (WAL)

Do you know someone who would love this resource?
Tell them about it...

https://artuk.org/discover/topics/civilians Copy
Link copied to clipboard!
  • bloomberg
  • dlb foundation
  • Supported by

    Arts CouncilArts Council
  • heritage fund
® is a registered trade mark of the Public Catalogue Foundation.
Art UK is the operating name of the Public Catalogue Foundation, a charity registered in England and Wales (1096185) and Scotland (SC048601).

Follow us

    • Join us on Facebook
    • Follow us on YouTube
    • Top
  • Subscribe to newsletter
  • Donate to Art UK

Quick links

  • Contact us
  • FAQ
  • Terms of use
  • Privacy policy
  • AI policy
  • Use of cookies
  • Copyright notice
  • Accessibility
  • Shop
  • Disclaimer
  • Jobs
  • Website credits
® is a registered trade mark of the Public Catalogue Foundation.
Art UK is the operating name of the Public Catalogue Foundation, a charity registered in England and Wales (1096185) and Scotland (SC048601).