Transcript Slide 1

Hot Moment off Sicily
By: CBM Hunter Wood spent
time as a combat artist aboard a
cutter engaged in antisubmarine
duty in the waters of the North
Atlantic. In addition, he was
aboard a transport vessel that
participated in the invasion of
North Africa.
A Marine
By: Technical Sergeant Victor
P. Donahue completed his recruit
training at San Diego and then
went overseas with the Public
Relations section of a combat
unit. His keen artistic work
captured the true essence of what
is was to be a United States
Marine during World War II.
Compassion
By: Howard Brodie
I remember the young soldier
well, he screamed, he was just
out of control, and he screamed,
and there was another soldier
next to him who consoled him,
and embraced him. That was a
moving moment for me, to see that compassion in combat.
And these are the things a person feels when he's in
proximity to death-- his buddy, that next human being, that
person in the foxhole is the most important person in your life.
We Move Again
1944. Gouache. 14x20 in.
Produced at Anzio, Italy, this
character study of exhausted
soldiers on the move could
apply to the entire Italian
campaign. Never sure what
the next day would bring,
always alert and ready to go,
tired, unshaven men squint
their eyes to avoid the dust
and move onward.
By: Second Lieutenant Edward A. Reep
In 1943, the War Department, under the guide of Secretary
Henry Stimson, formed an Art Advisory Committee that was
charged with selecting and assigning artists to various
theaters of operation. In all, forty-two artists were selected,
nineteen civilians and twenty-three soldiers. Below is a
discussion of some of these combat artists and an exploration
of some of their insightful works of art produced during
World War II. The role of the combat artist may be detailed
most precisely by quoting from the memorandum that George
Biddle, original chairman of the War Department Art
Advisory Committee, sent to overseas art units in April of
1943. Biddle stated,
"In this war there will be a greater amount than ever before
of factual reporting, of photographs and moving
pictures. You are not sent out merely as news gatherers. You
have been selected as outstanding American artists, who will
record the war in all its phases, and its impact on you as
artists and as human beings. The War Department Art
Advisory Committee is giving you as much latitude as
possible in your method of work, whether by sketches done
on the spot, sketches made from memory, or from notes taken
on the spot, for it is recognized that an artist does his best
work when he is not tied down by narrow technical
limitations. What we insist on is the best work you are
individually capable of; and the most integrated picture of
war in all its phases that your group is capable of. This will
require team play on your part as well as individual effort. It
is suggested that you will freely discuss each other's work and
assignments, always in hope of new suggestions and new
enthusiasm. Any subject is in order, if as artists you feel it is
part of War; battle scenes and the front line; battle
landscapes; the wounded; the dying and the dead; prisoners of
war; field hospitals and base hospitals; wrecked habitations
and bombing scenes; character sketches of our own troops, of
prisoners, of the natives of the country you visit...the tactical
implements of war; embarkation and debarkation scenes; the
nobility, courage, cowardice, cruelty, boredom of war...Try to
omit nothing; duplicate to your heart's content. Express if
you can-realistically or symbolically- the essence and spirit of
War. You may be guided by Blake's mysticism, by Goya's
cynicism and savagery, by Delacroix's romanticism, by
Daumier's humanity and tenderness; or better still follow you
own inevitable star."
http://history.sandiego.edu/GEN/st/~pkaplan/index.html
The Price
By: Tom Lea
Below is the sketch that
Lea drew while in a shell
hole on the beach during
the Peleliu Landings.
“I fell flat on my face just as I heard
the whishhh of a mortar I knew was
too close. A red flash stabbed at my eyeballs. About fifteen
yards away, on the upper edge of the beach, it smashed down
four men from our boat. One figure seemed to fly to pieces.
With terrible clarity I saw the head and one leg sail into the air.
I got up… ran a few steps, and fell into a small hole as another
mortar burst threw dirt on me. Lying there in terror looking
longingly up the slope for better cover, I saw a wounded man
near me, staggering in the direction of the LVTs (Landing
Vehicle - Tracked). His face was half bloody pulp and the
mangled shreds of what was left of an arm hung down like a
stick, as he bent over in his stumbling, shock-crazy walk. The
half of his face that was still human had the most terrifying look
of abject patience I have ever seen. He fell behind me, in a red
puddle on the white sand.
It was established later that the invasion of Peleliu as a stepping
stone to the invasion of the Philippines had not been necessary Gen. MacArthur had already bypassed the Palaus and landed at
Leyte in the Philippines.”
The artist created it while employed by LIFE magazine as a war
artist in the Pacific Theater of war. Lea was attached to a Marine
unit that assaulted the Japanese held island of Peleliu, and he
was trained and equipped like every other Marine, except that he
went into battle armed with a sketch pad and pens as his primary
weapons. Lea had actually witnessed the soldier’s death during
the bloody landing, and he sketched the soldier’s agony as it
occurred. Back in the studio Lea transformed his black and
white pen sketch into an unforgettable oil painting, which is now
a permanent part of the U.S. Army Art Collection.
http://art-for-a-change.com/blog/2009/07/tom-lea-the-art-of-war.html
Buchenwald
By: Gary Sheahan
Night Duty
By: Franklin Boggs
World WAR II NAVY ART:
A Vision of History
With the rise of tension in the "undeclared war" of the North Atlantic,
Griffith Baily Coale convinced Admiral Chester W. Nimitz to send
Navy artists into action to record their impressions in ways that cameras
and the written word could not; the Navy Combat Artist Program was
approved in August 1941.
Eight Navy artists were sent to serve alongside fighting men and record
their impressions of the action. This small number of official Navy
combat artists produced more than 1,300 drawings, watercolors and
paintings. They served in and documented a variety of actions in the
European and Pacific theaters, including the Normandy invasion,
campaigns in North Africa and the invasion of Okinawa. Their art
evokes the image of war and the personal experience of the men who
fought in it. It was used in books, magazines and toured the country in
exhibitions designed to inform and raise the morale of the public. The
captions in the exhibition are the artists' own words, oftentimes written
on the reverse of the paintings, giving their unique insight into the
events as they saw them
U.S.S. Missouri
By: Combat Artist
Sidney Simon
To the Burial Ground
By: Alexander P. Russo
Specialist First Class, USNR
Combat Artists
WWII
"What makes the work thrilling, interesting
and dramatic is the fact that these men have
seen action in the Aleutians, the Pacific,
Africa, Sicily and other theaters of war, and
yet have found time to put down on canvas
the things they have seen and experienced so
that the people back home will receive not
only a photographic point of view but an
emotional and spiritual one as well."
Aimee Crane (Quote from Art in the Armed
Forces, 1972
Many of the dead were buried on the slope of a hill directly behind the
beach after the landings on D-Day at Normandy. A high price was paid
in terms of American lives in establishing the first beachhead, which
lead to final victory.
The Men Who Took Manila
By: SGT Jess Cauthorn
depicts himself in uniform
as the second soldier in a
line of four.
During WWII, combat artist
SGT Jess Cauthorn captured
the everyday lives of
soldiers at war, such as in
his watercolor of a quiet moment on a troop ship in the South
Pacific.
http://www.seattlepi.com/visualart/46108_warart12.shtml
Garden at Hiroshima,
Autumn
By: Commander, USNR
When Naval investigation teams went into Hiroshima City after the
bombing about a month later, inhabitants generally stayed away. This
sense of isolation amid the ruins left the teams with an eerie feeling as
they worked.
http://www.albanyinstitute.org/exhibits/wwII.combat.htm
I fought the war more furiously perhaps
with my paintbrush than with my weapons.
And I always put myself in a position where
I could witness or be a part of the fighting.
That was my job, I felt. And I was young,
kind of crazy, I suppose.
-- Ed Reep