Illustrating the Great War: From Trench Newspapers to Contemporary Comics

A new exhibition in Udine draws from the Augusto Luxardo collection of 5,700 pieces donated to the municipality in 1930, now reorganized, cataloged, and digitized. The show maps what soldiers read and how they laughed in the trenches, focusing on trench newspapers commissioned by the Propaganda Service after the Caporetto defeat. In the last months of the conflict, 62 million printed items—magazines, postcards, posters, bulletins—were exchanged at the front, dropped over enemy lines, or circulated within the country. The exhibition features videomapping in the Salone del Parlamento, touchscreens to browse magazines, and interactive installations including cyclostyle prints and early American animated films. It highlights artists like Giorgio de Chirico, Carlo Carrà, Ardengo Soffici, and Mario Sironi, who were called by the Army General Staff to boost patriotic faith through illustrated newspapers. Curator Anna Villari notes these artists, still rooted in Liberty style, were unprepared for this new role in communication. The show also connects to contemporary illustrators such as Gipi, Hugo Pratt, Joe Sacco, Manuele Fior, Laura Scarpa, and Jacques Tardi, who have each addressed World War I in their work—through leporello books on the Somme, trench narratives, medical stories, or family histories. The exhibition runs in Udine.