Imperial War Museum London

The Imperial War Museum London is a British institution based in the London Borough of Southwark, in the United Kingdom. It was established in 1917, during the First World War, and was officially opened on 9 June 1920 by King George V at the Crystal Palace in Sydenham Hill. After a period at the Imperial Institute in South Kensington from 1924, it moved in 1936 into premises on the former site of the Bethlem Royal Hospital, a psychiatric hospital in Southwark, where it remains. From 1970 onwards it began to expand to other sites.

Its collections are broad: personal and official documents, photographs, film material, oral history recordings, a large library, an art collection, and military vehicles and aircraft. The museum is spread across several sites in England. The main London building focuses mainly on the First World War and, to a lesser extent, the Second. The Duxford museum near Cambridge is a major aviation museum with two separate collections, one on American and one on British aircraft. The northern branch in Trafford, designed by the architect Daniel Libeskind, opened in 2002.

As far as painting goes, the museum holds war pictures by several artists. Paul Nash is the most represented painter on the website, with five works, including The Menin Road, Battle of Britain and Battle of Germany. Laura Knight appears four times, with Ruby Loftus Screwing a Breech Ring and The Nuremberg Trial, and Christopher R. W. Nevinson three times, including Paths of Glory. William Orpen is represented by Dead Germans in a Trench and To the Unknown British Soldier in France, and John Nash by Over the Top. The list also includes John Singer Sargent's Gassed and works by Philip de László and Norah Neilson Gray.