This is the May 1944 issue of What’s New, which was
published by Abbott Laboratories. It has a stirring patriotic cover of a young
girl and a younger boy running through a field painted by Lily Harmon. It has
the tag line “We owe it to them – BUY MORE
BONDS.”
Throughout this issue is special “war art” of “Sketches
from an Abbott War Artist’s Notebook.” This multi-page reproduction of artist
Kerr Eby’s artwork from the invasion of the Japanese-held island of Tarawa is
both powerful and poignant. Eby’s sketches bring to life the costs of war in
very human terms.
WHAT’S NEW was sent to physicians, hospital administrators
and others in healthcare by Abbott Laboratories. The magazine contains a number
of articles on new drugs, medical procedures, etc. – much of it learned from
battlefield surgeons during the war. There are 32 pages and the magazine
measures approximately 9.75 x 12.5 inches.
Lily
Harmon (born Lillian Perelmutter; 1912–1998) was an American
visual artist. She studied at the Yale School of Fine Arts in New Haven, and
then went on to the Académie Colarossi in Paris, and lastly at the Art Students
League of New York.
While studying in Paris, she would often get up at 6:30 in
the morning, take the bus around town, and sketch people doing their daily
work. She also studied textile design where she learned a lot about abstract
lines, and color.
Harmon illustrated books in the period 1945-1976, including
by such authors as Franz Kafka, Andre Gide, Jean-Paul Sartre, Thomas Mann, and
Edith Wharton.
Harmon was the subject of a 50-year retrospective
exhibition in 1982 which was organized by the Wichita Art Museum in Kansas and
later traveled to the Provincetown Art Association and the Butler Institute of
American Art. Her first solo gallery show took place at Associated American
Artists in 1994, in New York. Since then her works have been exhibited at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Fine Arts
Museums of San Francisco, etc.
Harmon was a member of the Artists Equity Association, the
Provincetown Art Association, and the National Academy of Design. Later in her
life, she was a professor for painting at the National Academy of Design from
1974 until her retirement. She published an autobiography, Freehand, in 1981
(Simon & Schuster).
Kerr
Eby
(October 19, 1889 – November 18, 1946) was a Canadian illustrator best known
for his renderings of soldiers in combat in both World War I and World War II.
He is held in a similar regard to Harvey Dunn and the other famous illustrators
dispatched by the government to cover the First World War.
Enlisting in the Army in 1917, Eby served in an ambulance
crew and later as a camoufleur. Although unable to acquire an artist's
commission to cover the war, he created many memorable and haunting images of soldiers
both in combat and living their daily lives on the front.
In the 1920s and 1930s, Eby continued to occasionally
generate pieces related to his experience, and worked many of his early sketches
into completed lithographs. These images were eventually collected and
distributed in the book WAR, which remains in the collection of many libraries
today. Notable images in this collection include a haunting drawing of marines
retreating across the countryside beneath a menacing black cloud. In 1930, he
was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member, and
became a full Academician in 1934. He was also a member of the Society of
American Graphic Artists. His work was part of the painting event in the art
competition at the 1932 Summer Olympics.
As the United States returned to war in 1941, Eby attempted
to reenlist but was denied because of his age. He found service instead in the combat artists program created by Abbott
Laboratories to cover the war. He operated primarily in the Pacific during
World War II, where he landed with the Marines on Tarawa and Guadalcanal. He
created many of his strongest works, and put his life on the line to capture
the experiences he shared with those soldiers.
Eby contracted a tropical disease while covering the war in
Bougainville, and died at his home in Westport, Connecticut in 1946. He left
behind a great body of completed work and much that was still in progress.
These drawings, prints, and paintings serve as both historical record and
primary documentation of the American experience of war in the 20th century.