Bronze
Tate Collection
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<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/charles-sargeant-jagger-1351" aria-label="More by Charles Sargeant Jagger" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Charles Sargeant Jagger</a>
Mans Land
Presented by the Council of British School at Rome 1923
actions: postures and motions
adults
architecture
barbed wire
Belgium
birth to death
body
contorted
corpse
countries and continents
death
emotions and human qualities
emotions, concepts and ideas
France
gun, rifle
history
horror
lying down
man
medical
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military: World War I
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<p>There was an enormous output of memorial sculpture in the early 1920s as every community sought to raise a memorial to the men and women they had lost in the First World War. These ranged from representations of traditionally heroic soldiers to simpler, more abstract forms that acknowledged, perhaps, the unspeakable qualities of the war. The most famous was the Cenotaph, designed by Edwin Lutyens, in London’s Whitehall. Jagger became one of the leading memorial sculptors. Here he shows a listening post in No Man’s Land, where a soldier hides among the bodies of his dead comrades in order to listen to the enemy close by.</p><p><em>Gallery label, September 2016</em></p>
relief bronze
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
5 June 2018 – 23 September 2018
2018-09-23
5 June 2018 – 23 September 2018
2018-09-23
2018-06-05
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2018-06-05
Aftermath: Art in the Wake of World War One
Exhibition
No Man’s Land
object: 1264 × 3075 × 90 mm, 588 kg
Presented by the Council of British School at Rome 1923
<div class="text">
<p>There was an enormous output of memorial sculpture in the early 1920s as every community sought to raise a memorial to the men and women they had lost in the First World War. These ranged from representations of traditionally heroic soldiers to simpler, more abstract forms that acknowledged, perhaps, the unspeakable qualities of the war. The most famous was the Cenotaph, designed by Edwin Lutyens, in London’s Whitehall. Jagger became one of the leading memorial sculptors. Here he shows a listening post in No Man’s Land, where a soldier hides among the bodies of his dead comrades in order to listen to the enemy close by.</p>
</div>

Display caption
2016-09-06T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>N01354</b> NO MAN'S LAND 1919–20
<br/> 
<br/>Inscr. ‘C. Sargeant Jagger Sc.’ b.r.
<br/>Bronze relief, 50×130 (127×330).
<br/>Presented by the Council of the British School at Rome 1923.
<br/><i>Lit:</i> D. S. MacColl, ‘Two of the Young’ in <i>Burlington Magazine</i>, XI, 1922, pp.84–9, the plaster version repr. pl.1b.
<br/><i>Repr:</i> <i>Tate Gallery Illustrations</i>, 1928, pl.130.</p>
<p>The artist's sister, Edith Jagger, wrote (28 October 1958) that the first sketch for ‘No Man's Land’ was begun in Sheffield where he was recovering from a serious wound in the early summer of 1918: ‘He set to work immediately - using plasticine and various oddments to get out a small sketch model: Before leaving him in the morning I helped him to a high chair in front of my big easel - and there he stayed until I returned some hours later to help him down!’</p>
<p>The final <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/r/relief" title="Glossary definition for 'Relief'"><span>relief</span></a> was executed in London as a commission during the artist's tenure of the British School of Rome Scholarship in 1919–20. He was allowed to hold it in England as he was working on a relief for the Imperial War Museum at the same time. In a letter to Yockney at the I.W.M. he wrote on 5 August 1918: ‘I have several ideas taken from actual battle experience, some of which are already landmarks in the history of the Empire, which I would like to have the opportunity of recording in clay.’ One of these is the Battle of Ypres, 1914, 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/p/plaster-of-paris" title="Glossary definition for 'Plaster of Paris'"><span>plaster</span></a> of which is in the I.W.M., the other is ‘No Man's Land’. A further letter to Yockney of 11 December 1918, at the I.W.M., says: ‘I am enclosing a photo of another sketch I have made which you have not yet seen. The subject is a listening post in No Man's Land and shows the sentry on his post, which for obvious reasons is often chosen amongst a group of dead.’ A <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/m/metal" title="Glossary definition for 'Metal'"><span>bronze</span></a> <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/cast" title="Glossary definition for 'Cast'"><span>cast</span></a> of this first sketch was included in the Memorial exhibition, 1935 (7).</p>
<p>The original full-size plaster model included the following inscription from ‘To the Vanguard’ by Beatrix Brice-Miller:</p>
<p>O, little mighty band that stood for England That with your bodies for a living shield Guarded her slow awakening.</p>
<p>The lettering was suppressed in the bronze cast. After the bronze was cast the artist appears to have done some further work on the original model as he wrote to Blaikeley (I.W.M., 14 November 1933): ‘I have the completed full size model of my relief “No Man's Land”. This model has never been executed in permanent material in its finished state and I am anxious that some time or other this should be done as I consider it the best of my war <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/s/sculpture" title="Glossary definition for 'Sculpture'"><span>sculptures</span></a>.’ The model was included in the Memorial exhibition, 1935 (8), and was purchased for the I.W.M. in 1936. However, the only difference seems to be that it includes the inscription. During the same months as the Memorial exhibition another bronze, either of the sketch or of the finished version, was exhibited at the R.A., 1935 (1657).</p>
<p>When the Tate Gallery version was acquired it was built into the wall of Gallery XXIII. At the beginning of the war in 1939 it was covered over with protective boarding and has not been uncovered since.</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, I
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-09-23T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
actions: postures and motions adults architecture barbed wire Belgium birth to death body contorted corpse countries and continents death emotions and human qualities emotions, concepts and ideas France gun, rifle history horror lying down man medical military military military: World War I objects people places society soldier stretcher suspended townscapes / man-made features trench weapons Western Front work and occupations