Sunday, 2 October 2016

The Henry Moore Institute: Sculpture and Prosthetics

After WW1, there was a mass influx of soldiers with missing limps due to trench warfare. Artists helped these ex-soldiers by designing prosthetics, such as fake legs, arms and even skin, held on by fake glasses. This advance in technology helped soldiers assimilate back into society.

Anna Coleman Ladd and Francis Derwent are just two examples of the many sculptors that worked with surgeons to make the prosthetics. The exhibition showcases some of their work, as well as showing the art work of Alice Lex-Nerlinger and Jacob Epstein, who viewed the prosthetics in a different light – they portrayed the soldiers who wore the prosthetics as being part machine, part human.

The exhibition showed how science and art intertwined to help humans progress, which can be linked to art and advertising intertwining to further our creativity.  Just as the sculptors used art to create prosthetics, we as advertisers can use art to make creative adverts.

1 comment:

  1. Very good post, evidencing object-based research and then linking it a little to advertising. Perhaps though the topic here links best to the ability of creative advertising to 'change perceptions' of people who wear prosthetics e.g. athletes in the 'superhuman' campaigns by Channel 4. Well done. Try and evidence more visits to exhibitions - showing additional independent research. Well done.

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