Shared Experience: A Bofors Gun, Algiers

A Bofors Gun, Algiers

Henry Carr RA
A Bofors Gun, Algiers
oil
76.2 x 75.5cm
IWM ART LD 2964

This Bofors gun is set at the entrance to the port of Algiers, with its crew in place. The first exhibition of war paintings at the National Gallery in London in July 1940 elicited complaints from Henry Carr that there were too many machines and not enough people, either portraits or troops in action. Ironically, this painting highlights the tension of describing mechanised warfare, for it is the gun that dominates the painting, with the soldiers reduced to being mere attendants.

 

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