The Lightbox Director, Marilyn Scott, writes about 'The Horse at War: 1914 - 1918' coming to an end and her favourite piece in the exhibition.

It is sad to think that in a very short time our exhibition 'The Horse at War: 1914 - 1918' will be closing its doors. Many people have asked me what my favourite part of the exhibition is and that’s really hard to say. How could you not marvel at Joey and the chance to get up close and see the amazing mechanical construction that is less obvious when he is up on stage. One of the works which I return to is the wonderful 'Forward The Guns 1917' by Lucy Kemp-Welch.

What I find amazing is that she never actually went to the Western Front. The work carries so much the sense of horses charging, but of course when she painted the work she was seated in a small tent on Salisbury Plain, with a false charge being staged for her benefit so she could accurately portray the horses as they might have been seen at the Front. How frustrating it must have been to her as an artist that because she was a woman she was not allowed to travel to France, where undoubtedly her considerable talent would have been further revealed.

Her sensitive close up views of horses, done in preparation for the larger work, are amongst the best animal paintings I have seen and this huge work has been consistently admired during the run of the exhibition. We have been so fortunate in having many great works loaned to this show and we will be very sad to see them go!

To see Lucy Kemp-Welch's 'Forward the Guns, 1917' visit 'The Horse at War: 1914 - 1918' exhibition in our Main Gallery (entrance with a £5 Annual Pass, under 18s free). We are lucky enough to be able to show some her working drawings alongside the final piece. The exhibition closes on Sunday 1 March, for more information about the exhibition click here.

Image credit: The cast of War Horse at the New London Theatre, photo by Brinkhoff Mögenburg