Trench art: many of the objects crafted from scrap metal in the trenches during wartime display a remarkable level of sophistication.(CURRENT and coming)(From Swords to Plowshares: Metal Trench Art from WWI and WWII)

Long popular among collectors, trench art has received an increasing amount of scholarly attention in recent years. This month an exhibition opening at the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, entitled From Swords to Plowshares: Metal Trench Art from WWI and WWII will present a comprehensive survey of the vases, ashtrays, lamps, crucifixes, and other forms crafted by soldiers during their idle time from the artillery shells, bullets, shrapnel, and assorted scrap metal that littered the landscape along the front. Prisoners of war and convalescing soldiers also made trench art, as did local artisans who created pieces to be sold as souvenirs to both soldiers and grieving family members visiting the postwar battlefields.

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While the remarkable level of creativity and craftsmanship of some of these objects may be unexpected considering the volatile circumstances of their production, soldiers on the front lines in World Wars I and II in fact often faced long periods of time in the trenches with little or no fighting when they could hone their metal-working skills. ...