An artist who upcycles his work from scrap parts has commemorated the First World War in his latest personal project, which is going on a tour of the district.

Geoff Latz, 56, of Eccleshill, has used copper wire to make soldiers, and used stones, twigs, sand, metal and handles from jute shopping bags to make sandbags.

The poignant piece, which is on show now at Bradford Local Studies Library, depicts a trench scene from The Battle of Verdun in France.

His grandfather Benno Ernst Latz, who he never got to know, was a doctor in the trenches on the German side. He had a sanatorium in Berlin but, being Jewish, fled the Nazis around 1936-38 to start a new life in America opening a practice in Wall Street, New York. Mr Latz’s father fled to England as a refugee around the same time.

“My grandfather who I never got to know was very much in my mind as I researched the Verdun piece but I did hear stories. I used materials that related to the real story of the trenches. Mud, the wire, the metal, so my work would be even more real to the people who come to see it.”

In the past Mr Latz, from Garton Drive, Eccleshill, has created his own recycled version of Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, a scrap galleon, which took him 1,000 hours to make from copper sheet and plumber’s tubing, a Tree Of Life projecting light and mist and a moving sculpture of the Old Testament’s Joseph.

The father of two began his art career six years ago but his passion for art started young - as a boy he was nicknamed The Professor due to his love for inventing.

The Battle of Verdun is on loan to Bradford Local Studies Library at the Margaret McMillan Tower building until Friday, October 21.

It is in a box display, with a toughened glass front lit by LED lights.

Next it will go on display at Bradford’s City Library in City Park until November 4 when it will move out to the district to go on show at Keighley Local Studies Library, coinciding with a screening of the imperial War Museum’s film The Battle of The Somme on November 19.

Verdun was the longest single battle of World War One, fought between the French and German armies from February 21 to December 18, 1916 nicknamed The Meat Grinder because it was so bloody ending in huge casualties and deaths.

An estimate made in 2000 reckoned there was an average of 70,000 casualties a month suffered at Verdun during the war. The Battle of Verdun lasted for 303 days and became the longest and one of the most costly battles in human history, according to war experts.

“An accurate figure of those killed and injured will probably never be known. The impact of the battle on the French Army was one of the main reasons for the British starting the Battle of the Somme in July 1916, in an effort to take German pressure off the French at Verdun,” said Mr Latz.

To see more of his work go to www.latzart.