This exhibition highlights IWM’s outstanding collection of work by women war artists, recording experiences both in theatres of war and at home.

Displaying work from the First World War to the Kosovo conflict, Women War Artists revisits key moments in the last century of Britain’s history of war and conflict, through a largely unexplored perspective.

The artists' experiences range from official commissions to secret observations and thought-provoking interpretations of the world at war. Among the works on display is A Shell Forge at a National Projectile Factory, Hackney Marshes, London (1918), a painting by Anna Airy, one of the first women officially commissioned during the First World War. The heat inside the shell forge was so intense that on one occasion Airy's shoes were burnt off her feet.

The exhibition also explores artists' responses to contemporary conflicts such as Jananne Al-Ani's photographic work Untitled May 1991 [Gulf War Work] and drawings from the 1982 Falklands Conflict by Linda Kitson, the first female artist officially commissioned to accompany troops in battle.