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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
There are significant differences in the artwork created by the branches of the U.S. military:
Scope
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.
Select artists
World War I
William James Aylward
Walter Jack Duncan
Harvey Thomas Dunn
Kerr Eby Marines
George Matthews Harding
Wallace Morgan
Ernest Clifford Peixotto
J. Andre Smith. Don Troiani (born 1949) Harry Everett Townsend, Army. Claggett Wilson Army
World War II
Paul Harding Myers, 1920-2007
McClelland Barclay, 1891–1942
George Biddle, 1885–1973
Franklin Boggs, 1914-2009
Aaron Bohrod, 1907–1992
Howard Brodie, 1915–2010
Manuel Bromberg, 1917–
Jack Coggins, 1914–2006
John Steuart Curry, 1897–1946, for information about his war art, see his artwork page Olin Dows, 1904–1981 Edward Dugmore, 1915–1996 William Franklin Draper, 1912–2003 Nathan Glick, 1912–2002 Albert A Gold, 1916-2006 Mitchell Jamieson, 1915–1976 Joe Jones, 1909–1963 Yasuo Kuniyoshi, 1893–1953 Warren Leopold, 1920–1998 Roger Lewis, 1918-2006 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 John McDermott, 1919–1977 Barse Miller, 1904-1973 John Cullen Murphy, 1919–2004 Albert K. Murray, 1906–1992 Henry Varnum Poor, 1887–1970 Dwight Shepler, 1905–1974 Mitchell Siporin, 1910–1976 Sidney Simon, 1917-1997 aka. Sid Simon, Standish Backus, 1910–1989 Frede Vidar, 1911-1967 Rudolph von Ripper, 1905-1960 Taro Yashima, 1908–1994