DeptName
Art

IDNO
IWM ART LD 5798

ProductionDate
1946

ProductionPeriod
1945 - 1975

ItemName
The Nuremberg Trial, 1946

ObjectType
painting

IndexPeople
Goering, Hermann W
Hess, Rudolf
Ribbentrop, Joachim von
Keitel, Wilhelm B J G
Rosenberg, Alfred
Frank, Hans
Frick, Wilhelm
Streicher, Julius
Funk, Walther
Schacht, Hjalmar H G
Doenitz, Karl
Raeder, Erich
Sauckel, Fritz
Jodl, Alfred
Papen, Franz von
Seyss-Inquart, Arthur
Fritzsche, Hans
Speer, Albert
Neurath, Konstantin von
Schirach, Baldur von

IndexConcepts
interior
holocaust
atrocities / war crimes
artist's response
prisoners
courts / law
military personnel
bomb damage
fire / fire fighting
politicians

IndexHistPeriod
1945 - 1975

FullSummary
Knight was appointed a ‘war correspondent’ for this commission and made a special BBC broadcast from Nuremberg. She gained special access to the broadcasting box just above the prisoners where she was able to make charcoal studies of the main protagonists amongst the lawyers and the accused. Her painting reproduces faithfully the courtroom scene and is, in effect, a group portrait of the prisoners who are shown wearing the cumbersome headphones necessary to hear a translation of the proceedings.
Knight was deeply disturbed by what she heard during the trial and the painting shows a landscape of desolation floating above the courtroom like a shared nightmare. We are invited to contemplate the dreadful consequences of totalitarian power.
The international tribunal at Nuremberg tried twenty-one leading Germans, headed by Hermann Goering. Eleven of the accused were sentenced to death, three to life imprisonment and a further four were given lesser prison terms.

ContextDescription
image: On the right two benches of the accused leaders stretch away from the foreground to the centre of the painting. Behind the defendants stands a line of white-helmeted military police who guard the benches and separate them from the court beyond. On the left, in front of the defendants, sit two rows of lawyers, largely in black robes. The lawyers and the defendants study sheaves of paper. In the background the painting metamorphoses into a depiction of rubble and damaged buildings, leading back towards a burning horizon.

Format
oil

Support
canvas

Dimensions
1828 mm
1524 mm

CopyrightStatus
crown

MakerName
Knight, Laura Dame RA

ProductionCountry
Great Britain

AcquisitionMethod
transfer

AcquisitionNote
War Artists Advisory Committee Commission

AcquisitionDate
1947

RelatedImageFile
web1art/4353-8.jpg

SubThemeTag
WarCrimes

UncatTransferDate
13/06/2007 05:50:45

URLEncodedDeptName
Art

FormatDescription
painting

AuthorityLink
Knight, Laura Dame RA

IndexPlace
Nuremberg, Bavaria, Germany

IndexPlaceDetail
Palace of Justice, Nuremberg

IndexEvent
Nuremberg Trials, War Crimes Trials

Theme
Nazi Europe
Holocaust

CoLStatus
Published

DigitalAsset
Y

IWMImageOwned
Y