War, Art and Surgery

In this contemporary art exhibition about military surgery, the artist Henry Tonks (himself a former surgeon) and documentarist Julia Midgley respond to each other's work. Key to the show are Tonks's 72 successive pastel portraits of World War I soldiers undergoing the pioneering plastic surgery of Harold Gillies and their steady recovery. Midgley's work records much more sophisticated medical interventions in Afghanistan, bringing focus to the similarities that remain and the improvements that have been made over the last century.