Prompted by a number of recent acquisitions supported by arts charity the Art Fund, the exhibition is the first opportunity to see different artistic responses to the persecution of European Jews. The exhibit draws from the IWM’s huge art collection of around 20,000 paintings and prints.
Following the liberation of Belsen in April 1945 British war artists were brought into close contact with the realities of the Nazi concentration camps. Unspeakable includes work by Leslie Coles, Doris Zinkeisen, Eric Taylor and Mary Kessell who witnessed the camp atrocities first hand.
The exhibition also includes work by contemporary artists such as Darren Almond and Paul Ryan who have reacted to their own experiences of holocaust sites in recent times.
