Western Front sketches: 2 – The Christmas Truce sculpture, Messines
In the main square of the small town of Messines, on the high ground of a ridge that saw the prelude to the infamous Battle of Passchendaele, stands a sculpture of two officers, one British and one German, with a football. This is Andy Edwards’ Christmas Truce memorial, a poignant reminder of a moment in December 1914 when the humanity of ordinary men on both sides of the conflict was spontaneously shared, only to be suppressed in the bloody campaigns reasserted in the days that followed.
Western Front sketches: 1 – The Grieving Parents by Käthe Kollwitz
An account of the incredibly tragic story behind ‘The Grieving Parents’, the brilliant German artist Käthe Kollwitz’s memorial to her son who was killed in 1914, and my experiences of drawing of this deeply moving sculpture
By bike along the Western Front of World War 1
The story of my 1500 kilometre bike ride along the Western Front of World War 1, an amazing 3-week journey through landscape and history
Of Silk and Saints: a week on the shores of Lake Como
“My grandmother kept silkworms beside her bed during the feeding weeks”, recalled Eleanora, the receptionist at Como’s remarkable Silk Museum. “In those days”, she went on, “almost everyone produced silk at home”. The loss of mulberry trees through road and...
