Oil paint on canvas
Tate Britain
Tate Collection
Works with images
Works on display
General Collection
Contemporary Art Society
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/christopher-richard-wynne-nevinson-1697" aria-label="More by Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson</a>
La Mitrailleuse
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society 1917
actions: expressive
adults
anonymity
architecture
barbed wire
battle
building
clothing and personal items
emotions and human qualities
emotions, concepts and ideas
fighting
French
gun, machine gun
helmet
history
man
military
military: World War I
nationality
objects
people
ruins
society
soldier
townscapes / man-made features
weapons
Western Front
work and occupations
<p>Nevinson aligned himself with the Italian futurists who celebrated and embraced the violence and mechanised speed of the modern age. But his experience as an ambulance driver in the First World War changed his view. In his paintings of the Front, the soldiers are reduced to a series of angular planes and grey colouring. Here, they appear almost like machines themselves, losing their individuality, even their humanity, as they seem to fuse with the machine gun which gives this painting its title.</p><p><em>Gallery label, September 2016</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
6 August 2001 – 30 March 2003
2003-03-30
6 August 2001 – 30 March 2003
2003-03-30
2001-08-06
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2001-08-06
War and Memory
Collection based display
2 October 2002 – 3 January 2003
2003-01-03
1 October 2004 – 31 January 2005
2005-01-31
2004-10-01
Science Museum (London, UK)
2002-10-02
Nevinson
Loan-out
17 May 2004 – 9 December 2007
2007-12-09
17 May 2004 – 9 December 2007
2007-12-09
2004-05-17
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2004-05-17
Modern Figures
Collection based display
16 October 2010 – 4 November 2012
2012-11-04
16 October 2010 – 4 November 2012
2012-11-04
2010-10-16
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2010-10-16
Gallery 10
Collection based display
30 November 2012 – 25 September 2022
2022-09-25
30 November 2012
2012-11-30
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2012-11-30
Gallery 3
Collection based display
27 February 2014 – 15 June 2014
2014-06-15
27 February 2014 – 15 June 2014
2014-06-15
2014-02-27
National Portrait Gallery (London, UK)
http://www.npg.org.uk
2014-02-27
A Richer Dust: The Great War in Portraits
Loan-out
28 June 2014 – 9 March 2015
2015-03-09
28 June 2014 – 9 March 2015
2015-03-09
2014-06-28
Imperial War Museum (London, UK)
http://www.iwm.org.uk/
2014-06-28
Truth and Memory
Loan-out
31 October 2022
31 October 2022
2022-10-31
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2022-10-31
Gallery 4
Collection based display
La Mitrailleuse
support: 610 × 508 mm
frame: 777 × 670 × 90 mm
Presented by the <a href="/search?gid=999999975" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Contemporary Art Society</a> 1917
<div class="text">
<p>Christopher Nevinson identified with the Italian futurist art movement. They celebrated and embraced the speed and efficient power of the modern age. Nevinson’s experience as an ambulance driver in the First World War, however, changed his view of the potential of a mechanised world. In this painting, soldiers fighting in France are reduced to a series of angular planes and grey colouring. They lose their individuality and even their humanity as they seem to fuse with the machine gun, which gives this painting its title.</p>
</div>

Online caption
2023-12-01T00:00:00
online-caption
ONLINE_CAPTION
<p><b>N03177</b> LA MITRAILLEUSE 1915</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Inscr. ‘C. R. W. Nevinson’ b.l.
<br/>Canvas, 24×20 (61×51).
<br/>Presented by the Contemporary Art Society 1917.
<br/><i>Coll:</i>
C.A.S., 1916 (see below).
<br/><i>Exh:</i> A.A.A., <i>Eighth London Salon</i>, Grafton Galleries, March 1916 (101); Leicester Galleries, September–October 1916 (50).
<br/><i>Lit:</i> W. Sickert, ‘O Matre Pulchra’ in <i>Burlington Magazine</i>, XXIX, 1916, p.35; Konody, 1917, pp.22–3, repr. p.35; C. Lewis Hind, ‘An Appreciation’, in exh. cat., Bourgeois Galleries, New York, 1920; Nevinson, 1937, pp.82, 84, 91, 127 and 160–2.
<br/><i>Repr:</i> John Russell, <i>From Sickert to 1948</i>, 1948, pl.65; <i>Studio</i>, CLXII, 1961, p.49.</p>
<p>Painted in London during the artist's honeymoon on leave from the R.A.M.C., 1915. Exhibited in 1916 as ‘Mitrailleuse: an Illustration’, together with ‘Violence: an <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/a/abstract-art" title="Glossary definition for 'Abstract art'"><span>Abstraction</span></a>’ (100) and ‘Night: Light: Crowd: an Interpretation’ (102). It was described by Walter Sickert in 1916 as ‘the most authoritative and concentrated utterance on the war in the history of <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a>’.</p>
<p>According to the catalogue of the exhibition at the Bourgeois Galleries, New York, 1920, and the artist's <i>Paint and Prejudice</i>, 1937, p.84, the painting was presented to the C.A.S. by an anonymous American donor, but according to the <i>C.A.S. Report 1914–19</i>, p.4, it was purchased by the C.A.S.</p>
<p>In 1925 the artist, who had by then abandoned his early interest in <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/f/futurism" title="Glossary definition for 'Futurism'"><span>Futurism</span></a> and <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/cubism" title="Glossary definition for 'Cubism'"><span>Cubism</span></a>, asked that this picture should no longer be kept on view; a leakage of his request caused a short-lived sensation in many London and provincial papers of 24 to 26 October.</p>
<p>A pen <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/d/drawing" title="Glossary definition for 'Drawing'"><span>drawing</span></a>, possibly for the painting but more probably for the subsequent <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/e/engraving" title="Glossary definition for 'Engraving'"><span>engraving</span></a>, was exhibited with the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/n/new-english-art-club" title="Glossary definition for 'New English Art Club'"><span>N.E.A.C</span></a>., summer 1916 (76), and either this drawing or the engraving at the Leicester Galleries, September–October 1916 (37); the drawing later belonged to Arnold Bennett and was bought at Sotheby's, 26 April 1961 (39), by Sir David Scott.</p>
<p><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, <i>The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture</i>, London 1964, II
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-10-05T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
actions: expressive adults anonymity architecture barbed wire battle building clothing and personal items emotions and human qualities emotions, concepts and ideas fighting French gun, machine gun helmet history man military military: World War I nationality objects people ruins society soldier townscapes / man-made features weapons Western Front work and occupations