Trench art

Trench art is the evocative but misleading name given to a dazzling array of objects associated mainly with the First World War and the inter-war years (1914-39). Many items are recycled battlefield debris, notably artillery shell cases, often decorated with Art Nouveau motifs. Other objects, made from bullets and shrapnel, include letter-openers, cigarette lighters, enigmatic crucifixes, and artful miniature aeroplanes and tanks. Equally ingenious are talismanic and 'sweetheart' jewellery, embroideries, and items carved from stone, bone and wood. This book describes the different types of trench art, the techniques used to make them, and their historical and personal values to the soldiers, prisoners-of-war and families who made and bought them. Long ignored, trench art reveals a lost world of the Great War and its aftermath. About the author Dr Nicholas J. Saunders studied archaeology at Sheffield and Southampton Universities, and social anthropology at Queens' College, Cambridge. Between 1998 and 2001 he was a British Academy Senior Research Fellow investigating the anthropology of the First World War and making the first ever study of trench art