Flowers of Remembrance

On 3 May 1915, the Canadian officer John McCrae wrote his famous poem, In Flanders Fields, with the powerful image of poppies blowing among the crosses. Many soldiers noticed these brightly-hued field flowers amidst the death and destruction on the frontlines and soon they started picking these poppies as souvenirs or depicting them. The American poppy lady Moira Michael was deeply moved by McCrae’s poem and suggested using the poppy as an official symbol of remembrance. Soon after, the veterans’ associations of the British Empire followed the Americans’ example adopting the poppy as a symbol. In the first year of its existence the poppy was manufactured by women and children in the devastated regions of France. As of 1922, however, the official remembrance poppy was exclusively produced by disabled veterans. This was also the case in France, where cornflowers were produced as early as 1916 until they were recognised as a national symbol in 1920. Belgium, meanwhile, had the daisy. Nowadays the Anglo-Saxon poppy is mainly used as a symbol of remembrance: often consecrated, sometimes contested but also increasingly frequently commercialised.

The exhibition is accompanied by a publication.