During World War I, combatants’ faces were exposed to sniper fire and flying shrapnel in the trenches. In previous wars, such wounds would have proven fatal. Now, with improved medical and transport services, the lives of the wounded could be saved, but not always their faces. Crudely patched together and sent back to the front or to their families, men with “broken faces” were routinely ostracized.

David M. Lubin, the Charlotte C. Weber Professor of Art at Wake Forest University, has written extensively on American art and popular culture. His most recent book is Grand Illusions: American Art and the First World War (Oxford UP, 2016). Along with two co-curators, he organized the acclaimed art exhibition World War I and American Art. In 2016–17, Lubin was the inaugural Terra Foundation Visiting Professor of American Art at Oxford University.