War and Trauma

Art can be a vehicle for communicating the atrocities and terror of human conflict. The Smart Museum’s collection includes full sets of three exemplary print portfolios that testify to the total effects of war: Jacques Callot’s Les Misères et les malheurs de la guerre, Franscisco de Goya’s Los Desastres de la Guerra, and Otto Dix’s Der Krieg. Additional depth of artwork by veterans in the collection, including H. C. Westermann and the artists associated with the group “the Monster Roster,” round out a cross-historical thread in the Museum’s collection that speaks to the physical and existential toll of war.