“The issue of art is freedom. Without it, the world of art could not exist. We know that the enemy is trying to destroy freedom…. We saw it first when he destroyed the works and lives of those whose art was a threat to his evil purposes.” Francis Brennan, Director of the Graphic Bureau of the Office of War Information, September 1942
Shortly after the United States entered World War 2, following the attack on Pearl Harbor, nearly every person and every business shifted into supporting the war effort. This included the nation’s artists. On December 10, 1941, only 3 days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, more than thirty national artists organizations comprised of nearly 10,000 artists formed “Artists for Victory.” These groups did much on the home front to support the war effort in many ways including patriotic poster contests and advertising. Many large organizations, such as the American Red Cross, also employed artists in the war effort.
In 1942, the U.S. War Department formed the Art Advisory Committee. This committee, chaired by noted artist George Biddle, selected 23 artists who were already in uniform, and 19 civilian artists to be commissioned and sent to every theater of the war. Their orders, according to the mission of the Art Advisory Committee, were to “…. record the war in all its phases and its impact on you as artists and human beings….” By the spring of 1943, these artists were hard at work in the twelve theaters of war around the world. Then in June of 1943, Congress, not seeing the value of such an endeavor, cut the program. Despite this cancelation, many private publications, including Life, Colliers, and Fortune Magazines paid to keep some of the artists at work. Many of the artists were reassigned to information offices and continued to paint and draw, and some military commanders simply assigned them as official unit artists. Eventually, the high command reinstituted the program and kept the artists at work.
These artists, like their battlefield artist predecessors in previous conflicts, were quite often in harm’s way. They endured artillery shells, mortars, and machine gun fire, aerial bombardments, and strafing, and of course the weather, which wasn’t always favorable. But still, from the jungles of the south Pacific to the snow-covered forests of Belgium, and the mountains of Italy, they continued to produce amazing art. There are landscapes, seascapes, portraits, humorous scenes, and civilians. They captured the action and terror of combat and its terrible aftermath, as well as the exhaustion and fatigue of life at the front. Most of this art is not propaganda but rather reveals the harsh realities and brutality of war. It is also a record of the experiences of the average citizen soldier that sacrificed much for freedom and democracy.
All in all, more than 12,000 paintings and drawings were created by the U.S. combat artists during the Second World War.
