Exhibition: From Fields to Factories

From Fields to Factories: Women's Work on the Home Front in the First World War
To 10 May, 2014
Otter Gallery, Chichester University, College Lane, Chichester PO19 6PE

This major exhibition explores the role of women in the Women's Land Army and Munitions during the First World War. The exhibition, curated by Dr Gill Clarke - Visiting Professor at the University of Chichester - features paintings by Randolph Schwabe, Hilda Carline and Richard Carline, on loan from the Imperial War Museum, the Tate and Ferens Art Gallery, Hull.

Among the key works on display is The Women’s Land Army and German Prisoners (1918) by Randolph Schwabe, a war artist on the Home Front recording women’s work on the land. Return from the Farm 1919 by Hilda Carline – the first wife of Stanley Spencer – was inspired by her experiences as a farm worker in the Women’s Land Army. The picture has been loaned from Ferens Art Gallery, Hull. A Portrait of Hilda (1918) by her brother Richard, also a war artist, is on display as well as one of his most impressive works Gathering on the Terrace at 47 Downshire Hill, Hampstead, London (1925) - a group portrait which includes Hilda, Stanley Spencer and the artist Henry Lamb.

Also on show are two rarely seen works by Stanley Spencer, from the University of Chichester’s Bishop Otter Collection, sketched in preparation for his celebrated murals at the Sandham Memorial Chapel, Burghclere. The murals were Spencer’s response to his experiences as a hospital orderly and as a soldier during the First World War – Mules shows a resurrected soldier lying among mules and can be seen alongside Spencer’s pencil sketch for the chapel. Further studies by Spencer, on loan from the Bishop Otter Collection, can be seen at Pallant House Gallery’s concurrent exhibition Stanley Spencer: Heaven in a Hell of War (to 15 June).

There is an extensive programme of events, talks and workshops accompanying website www.chi.ac.uk/ottergallery.

Opening times: Monday - Saturday 10am-5pm (closed Sundays, Easter Saturday and Bank Holidays). Free admission.

For more information visit http://www.chi.ac.uk/ottergallery/