About Us

IWM (Imperial War Museums) is the world’s leading authority on conflict and its impact, focusing on Britain, its former Empire and the Commonwealth, from the First World War to the present. 

We are dedicated to recording people’s experiences of modern conflict, exploring the causes of war and its impact on people’s lives. Our collections are made up of the everyday and the exceptional, and are drawn from people of all walks of life. They reflect the total nature of war and reveal stories of people, places, ideas and events. 

We make our unique collections relevant to contemporary audiences by creating vivid personal stories and powerful physical experiences that engage visitors of all ages with the issues of war and conflict, across our five museums. 

War changes us and the world we live in. IWM reflects the realities of war as both a destructive and creative force, and challenges people to look at conflict from different perspectives.

The image collections
The Museum’s collection of images of war and conflict comprises art, posters and photographs. 

Photographs
The Museum currently holds nearly 11 million photographs, covering all aspects of modern conflict from the First World War to the present day. 

Art
The Museum holds an exceptional collection of twentieth and twenty-first century British art and graphic design, including paintings, prints and drawings. The collection includes many great works of art from the Government War Art schemes of the First and Second World Wars. 

Posters
The collection contains 20,000 posters covering all aspects of conflict to the present day. 


IWM Prints provides the opportunity to buy images from this diverse collection - one of the largest and most important collections of modern conflict in the world.