For offer, an very nice painting. Fresh from a local estate. Never offered on the market until now. Vintage, Old, Original, Antiques  - NOT  Reproductions - Guaranteed !! Well-done by an accomplished artist. Unsigned. Soldiers in uniform working on gun / tank. Wish I knew the artist, but don't have any other information. Perhaps this person, possibly a soldier, went on to have a career in the arts or may have been involved with the WPA. Measures 7 1/4 x 6 1/2 inches. In very good condition. Please see photos. If you collect 20th century American Art history, military / Americana, Fine Art, paintings, etc. this is nice ONE OF A KIND collection you will never see again. 2630

American official war artists have been part of the American military since 1917. Artists are unlike the objective camera lens which records only a single instant and no more. The war artist captures instantaneous action and conflates earlier moments of the same scene within one compelling image.[1]

"We're not here to do poster art or recruiting posters... What we are sent to do is to go to the experience, see what is really there and document it—as artists."

— Sgt. Kristopher Battles, USMC.[2]

History

In World War I, eight artists commissioned as captains in the U.S. Corps of Engineers. These men were sent to Europe to record the activities of the American Expeditionary Forces.[3]

In 1941, the Navy Combat Art Program was founded in order to ensure that competent artists would be present at the scene of history-making events. Eight active duty artists developed a record of all phases of World War II; and all major naval operations have been depicted by Navy artists. During the Korean War, the program was revived with two military artists in combat contexts. Since then, artists have been sent to other combat zones, including the Persian Gulf.[1]

The U.S. Army War Art Unit was established in late 1942; and by the spring of 1943, 42 artists were selected. In May 1943, Congress withdrew funding the unit was inactivated.[3]

The Army's Vietnam Combat Art Program was started in 1966. Teams of soldier-artists created pictorial accounts and interpretations for the annals of army military history. These teams of five soldier-artists typically spent 60 days of temporary duty (TDY) in Vietnam embedded with various units. The U. S. Army Center of Military History (CMH) currently includes an Army Art Collection with about 40 representative war artists.[4]

In 1992, the Army Staff Artist Program was attached to the United States Army Center of Military History. Army artists are a permanent part of the Museum Division's Collections Branch.[3]

There are significant differences in the artwork created by the branches of the U.S. military:

""When you go over to the Air Force, the art is all airplanes. In the Navy, it's all ships. Army art tends to be more about the battle, and the Army loves trucks. They're fixated on vehicles. But the Marine Corps is fixated on Marines."

— Anita Blair, chief strategist at the National Security Professional Development Integration Office.[2]

Scope

Rice distribution at Carrefour in Haiti after the earthquake in 2010. Oil sketch by Sgt. Kristopher Battles, USMC

Military art and the work of American military artists includes both peacetime and wartime. For example, USMC combat artist Kristopher Battles deployed with American forces in Haiti to provide humanitarian relief as part of Operation Unified Response after the disastrous earthquake in 2010.[5]

Select artists

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.

World War I

William James Aylward[6]

Walter Jack Duncan[6]

Harvey Thomas Dunn[6]

Kerr Eby Marines

George Matthews Harding[6]

Wallace Morgan[6]

Ernest Clifford Peixotto[7]

J. Andre Smith.[7]

Don Troiani (born 1949)

Harry Everett Townsend, Army.[7]

Claggett Wilson Army

World War II

Paul Harding Myers, 1920-2007

McClelland Barclay, 1891–1942[8]

George Biddle, 1885–1973

Franklin Boggs, 1914-2009[9]

Aaron Bohrod, 1907–1992[10]

Howard Brodie, 1915–2010[11]

Manuel Bromberg, 1917–[12]

Jack Coggins, 1914–2006[10]

John Steuart Curry, 1897–1946, for information about his war art, see his artwork page[13]

Olin Dows, 1904–1981[14]

Edward Dugmore, 1915–1996[10]

William Franklin Draper, 1912–2003[15]

Nathan Glick, 1912–2002[16]

Albert A Gold, 1916-2006[17]

Mitchell Jamieson, 1915–1976[18]

Joe Jones, 1909–1963[19]

Yasuo Kuniyoshi, 1893–1953

Warren Leopold, 1920–1998

Roger Lewis, 1918-2006[20]

Henry Jay MacMillan (1908 1991) MacMiillan joined the U.S. Army in 1942 and soon became associated with the Army's art program at Fort Belvoir, Va. Attached to the 62nd Engineer Topographical Co. and later the headquarters of the Army's XIX Corps, he served as a combat artist in North Africa, Sicily, Normandy (where he executed a major study of German hedgerow defenses), Belgium, Holland and Germany. During the war, he executed a major body of watercolors and sketches documenting wartime destruction, battlefield landscapes and everyday military life. These were given major exhibitions in 1973 at the Wilmington-New Hanover County Museum and in 1994 (under the title “Behind the Lines”) at the Cape Fear Museum.

Ludwig Mactarian, 1908–1955[21]

John McDermott, 1919–1977[22]

Barse Miller, 1904-1973[20]

John Cullen Murphy, 1919–2004[10]

Albert K. Murray, 1906–1992

Henry Varnum Poor, 1887–1970

Dwight Shepler, 1905–1974

Mitchell Siporin, 1910–1976[23]

Sidney Simon, 1917-1997[24] aka. Sid Simon,[20]

Standish Backus, 1910–1989

Frede Vidar, 1911-1967[20]

Rudolph von Ripper, 1905-1960[23]

Taro Yashima, 1908–1994

Vietnam Era

Soldier Artist Participants in the U. S. Army Vietnam Combat Artists Program

CAT I, 15 Aug - 15 Dec 1966, Roger A. Blum (Stillwell, KS), Robert C. Knight (Newark, NJ), Ronald E. Pepin (East Hartford, CT), Paul Rickert (Philadelphia, PA), Felix R. Sanchez (Fort Madison, IA), John O. Wehrle (Dallas, TX), and supervisor, Frank M. Sherman.

CAT II, 15 Oct 1966 - 15 Feb 1967, Augustine G. Acuna (Monterey, CA), Alexander A. Bogdanovich (Chicago, IL), Theodore E. Drendel (Naperville, IL), David M. Lavender (Houston, TX), Gary W. Porter (El Cajon, CA), and supervisor, Carolyn M. O'Brien.

CAT III, 16 Feb - 17 June 1967, Michael R. Crook (Sierra Madre, CA), Dennis O. McGee (Castro Valley, CA), Robert T. Myers (White Sands Missile Range, NM), Kenneth J. Scowcroft (Manassas, VA), Stephen H. Sheldon (Los Angeles, CA), and supervisor, C. Bruce Smyser.

CAT IV, 15 Aug - 31 Dec 1967, Samuel E. Alexander (Philadelphia, MS), Daniel T. Lopez (Fresno, CA), Burdell Moody (Mesa, AZ), James R. Pollock (Pollock, SD), Ronald A. Wilson (Alhambra, CA), and technical supervisor, Frank M. Thomas.

CAT V, 1 Nov 1967 - 15 March 1968, Warren W. Buchanan (Kansas City, MO), Philip V. Garner (Dearborn, MI), Phillip W. Jones (Greensboro, NC), Don R. Schol (Denton, TX), John R. Strong (Kanehoe, HI), and technical supervisor, Frank M. Thomas.

CAT VI, 1 Feb - 15 June 1968, Robert T. Coleman (Grand Rapids, MI), David N. Fairrington (Oakland, CA), John D. Kurtz IV (Wilmington, DE), Kenneth T. McDaniel (Paris, TN), Michael P. Pala (Bridgeport, CT).

CAT VII, 15 Aug - 31 Dec 1968, Brian H. Clark (Huntington, NY), William E. Flaherty Jr. (Louisville, KY), William C. Harrington (Terre Haute, IN), Barry W. Johnston (Huntsville, AL), Stephen H. Randall (Des Moines, IA), and supervisor, Fitzallen N. Yow.

CAT VIII, 1 Feb - 15 June 1969, Edward J. Bowen (Carona Del Mar, CA), James R. Drake (Colorado Springs, CO), Roman Rakowsky (Cleveland, OH), Victory V. Reynolds (Idaho Falls, ID), Thomas B. Schubert (Chicago, IL), and supervisor, Fred B. Engel.

CAT IX, 1 Sept 1969 - 14 Jan 1970, David E. Graves (Lawrence, KS), James S. Hardy (Coronado, CA), William R. Hoettels (San Antonio, TX), Bruce N. Rigby (Dekalb, IL), Craig L. Stewart (Laurel, MD), and supervisor, Edward C. Williams.

Recent conflicts

Kristopher Battles

Henry Casselli

Michael D. Fay

See also

United States Army Art Program

Vietnam Combat Artists Program

United States Air Force Art Program

War artists

Military art

War photography

World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. In a total war directly involving more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries, the major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and the only two uses of nuclear weapons in war to this day. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, a majority being civilians. Tens of millions of people died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, massacres, and disease. In the wake of the Axis defeat, Germany and Japan were occupied, and war crimes tribunals were conducted against German and Japanese leaders.

World War II is generally considered to have begun on 1 September 1939, when Nazi Germany, under Adolf Hitler, invaded Poland. The United Kingdom and France subsequently declared war on Germany on 3 September. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union had partitioned Poland and marked out their "spheres of influence" across Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. From late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan (along with other countries later on). Following the onset of campaigns in North Africa and East Africa, and the fall of France in mid-1940, the war continued primarily between the European Axis powers and the British Empire, with war in the Balkans, the aerial Battle of Britain, the Blitz of the UK, and the Battle of the Atlantic. On 22 June 1941, Germany led the European Axis powers in an invasion of the Soviet Union, opening the Eastern Front, the largest land theatre of war in history.

Japan, which aimed to dominate Asia and the Pacific, was at war with the Republic of China by 1937. In December 1941, Japan attacked American and British territories with near-simultaneous offensives against Southeast Asia and the Central Pacific, including an attack on the US fleet at Pearl Harbor which forced the US to declare war against Japan; the European Axis powers declared war on the US in solidarity. Japan soon captured much of the western Pacific, but its advances were halted in 1942 after losing the critical Battle of Midway; later, Germany and Italy were defeated in North Africa and at Stalingrad in the Soviet Union. Key setbacks in 1943—including a series of German defeats on the Eastern Front, the Allied invasions of Sicily and the Italian mainland, and Allied offensives in the Pacific—cost the Axis powers their initiative and forced it into strategic retreat on all fronts. In 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained its territorial losses and turned towards Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945, Japan suffered reversals in mainland Asia, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy and captured key western Pacific islands.

The war in Europe concluded with the liberation of German-occupied territories, and the invasion of Germany by the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, culminating in the fall of Berlin to Soviet troops, Hitler's suicide and the German unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945. Following the Potsdam Declaration by the Allies on 26 July 1945 and the refusal of Japan to surrender on its terms, the United States dropped the first atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima, on 6 August, and Nagasaki, on 9 August. Faced with an imminent invasion of the Japanese archipelago, the possibility of additional atomic bombings, and the Soviet entry into the war against Japan and its invasion of Manchuria, Japan announced its intention to surrender on 15 August, then signed the surrender document on 2 September 1945, cementing total victory in Asia for the Allies.

World War II changed the political alignment and social structure of the globe. The United Nations (UN) was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts, and the victorious great powers—China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States—became the permanent members of its Security Council. The Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the nearly half-century-long Cold War. In the wake of European devastation, the influence of its great powers waned, triggering the decolonisation of Africa and Asia. Most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery and expansion. Political integration, especially in Europe, began as an effort to forestall future hostilities, end pre-war enmities and forge a sense of common identity.