Artists Who Served as Soldiers in World War I

The First World War saw numerous artists enlist as soldiers, profoundly marking their lives and work. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner volunteered as a driver to avoid combat but suffered panic attacks and was discharged; his 1915 self-portrait shows him with an amputated hand in uniform, confronting fears of impotence. Egon Schiele served from 1915, survived battles but died in the 1918 influenza pandemic, which killed about 40 million people, including Schiele and his wife. The Futurists, who glorified war, enlisted when Italy joined in 1915; Umberto Boccioni died from wounds that year, and Antonio Sant'Elia died at Monfalcone in 1916. Filippo Tommaso Marinetti was scarred by mountain fighting and severely wounded in 1917. Otto Dix served as a machine gunner from 1914 to 1918 on both fronts; his 1924 etching and aquatint series depicts war's devastation. Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, a French sculptor and Vorticist associate, joined the French army, earned a bravery decoration, and was killed at Neuville-Saint-Vaast at age 23; his lover Sophie Brzeska died in an asylum in 1925.