National World War I Museum and Memorial

The National World War I Museum and Memorial on Friday d a major introduction for its $5 million Wylie Gallery. The new 3,500-square-foot space inside the gallery, set to open on February 23, will highlight one of the world's biggest war-related artworks: John Singer Sargent's Gassed. "It's a stupendous painting. It's 21 feet long and more than nine feet tall," says senior custodian Doran Cart. "What's more, it's loaded with extraordinary scenes that Sargent saw when he was on the Western Front."The painting portrays British troopers, with their eyes swathed, strolling in a line to a dressing station after a mustard gas assault in August 1918 as a football coordinate proceeds in the background.Completed in 1919, the artistic creation is on visit from the Imperial War Museums in London where, Cart says, "It is viewed as one of the gallery's fortunes."