A WWII combat artist shares his recollections—and his arresting artwork—from the frontlines of the Italian campaign in this military memoir. Many artists have fought in wars and later recorded heroic scenes of great battles. Yet few artists have created their work on the frontlines as they fought alongside their comrades. Edward Reep, as an official combat artist in World War II, painted and sketched while the battles of the Italian campaign raged around him. At Monte Cassino, the earth trembled as he attempted to paint the historic bombing of that magnificent abbey. Later, racing into Milan with armed partisans on the fenders of his Jeep, he saw the bodies of Mussolini and his beautiful mistress cut down from the gas station where they had been hanged by their heels. That same day he witnessed the spectacle of a large German army force holed up in a high-rise office tower, waiting for the chance to surrender to the proper American brass for fear of falling into the hands of the vengeful partisans. Reep’s recollections of such desperate days are captured in Combat Artist, both in the text and in the many painfully vivid paintings and drawings that accompany it. Reep’s battlefield drawings show us, with unrelenting honesty, the horrors and griefs?and the bitter comedy?of battle.

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, many artists sought ways to contribute to the war effort. Here is a compelling collection of paintings, drawings and sketches that provide a stunning record of life in the trenches, on the front lines and behind the scenes.

Analyzes American painting depicting various aspects of World War II, including battle, prisoners, the homefront, recreation, and victory.

“A riveting tale told through personal accounts and sketches along the way—ultimately, a story of success against great odds. I enjoyed it enormously.” —Tom Brokaw The first book to tell the full story of how a traveling road show of artists wielding imagination, paint, and bravado saved thousands of American lives—now updated with new material. In the summer of 1944, a handpicked group of young GIs—artists, designers, architects, and sound engineers, including such future luminaries as Bill Blass, Ellsworth Kelly, Arthur Singer, Victor Dowd, Art Kane, and Jack Masey—landed in France to conduct a secret mission. From Normandy to the Rhine, the 1,100 men of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, known as the Ghost Army, conjured up phony convoys, phantom divisions, and make-believe headquarters to fool the enemy about the strength and location of American units. Every move they made was top secret, and their story was hushed up for decades after the war's end. Hundreds of color and black-and-white photographs, along with maps, official memos, and letters, accompany Rick Beyer and Elizabeth Sayles’s meticulous research and interviews with many of the soldiers, weaving a compelling narrative of how an unlikely team carried out amazing battlefield deceptions that saved thousands of American lives and helped open the way for the final drive to Germany. The stunning art created between missions also offers a glimpse of life behind the lines during World War II. This updated edition includes: A new afterword by co-author Rick Beyer Never-before-seen additional images The successful campaign to have the unit awarded a Congressional Gold Medal History and WWII enthusiasts will find The Ghost Army of World War II an essential addition to their library.

"The Ghost Army" is full of art and photographs telling the story of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, an extraordinary US Army unit that used inflatable tanks and sound effects records to stage a traveling road show of deception on the battlefields of Europe during WWII. Many who served in this to-secret unit were artists destined for illustrious post-war art careers, including a budding fashion designer named Bill Blass. In their spare time they painted and sketched their way across war-torn Europe. The book is a catalog for a museum exhibit about the unit, and a companion to the forthcoming documentary film.

"El Paso artist Tom Lea was commissioned by Life Magazine to paint the war as it was being experienced by U.S. and Allied soldiers, sailors, and airmen. Along with his sketchbook, Lea carried on these assignments his "record of work", a notebook in which he recorded observations and details on the images he hoped to create from the events he had seen." "Brendan M. Greeley, Jr. has collected virtually all of Tom Lea's firsthand accounts of his assignments for Life, along with his powerful sketches and unforgettable paintings, and placed them in context, along with photographs and research focusing on the people, places, and wartime events encountered by Tom Lea. Drawing on previously unpublished sources - the artist's diary, letters to the Texas historian J. Frank. Dobie, oral interviews, and archival materials from Texas and national collections - Greeley presents in The Two Thousand Yard Stare a uniquely comprehensive and sustained treatment of Lea's creative accomplishments during World War II." "This well-documented and astonishingly illustrated volume will fascinate those interested in the realistic depiction of war, in both images and words. Also a must-read for students, scholars, and collectors of the artist's work, The Two Thousand Yard Stare: Tom Lea's World War II is a brilliant compendium of the work and thought of one of America's most compelling painters and writers."--BOOK JACKET.

In 1940 Brummett Echohawk, an eighteen-year-old Pawnee boy, joined the Oklahoma National Guard. Within three years his unit, a tough collection of depression era cowboys, farmers, and more than a thousand Native Americans, would land in Europe—there to distinguish themselves as, in the words of General George Patton, “one of the best, if not the best division, in the history of American arms.” During his service with the 45th Infantry, the vaunted Thunderbirds, Echohawk tapped the talent he had honed at Pawnee boarding school to document the conflict in dozens of annotated sketches. These combat sketches form the basis of Echohawk’s memoir of service with the Thunderbirds in World War II. In scene after scene he re-creates acts of bravery and moments of terror as he and his fellow soldiers fight their way through key battles at Sicily, Salerno, and Anzio. Woven with Pawnee legend and language and quickened with wry Native wit, Drawing Fire conveys in a singular way what it was like to go to war alongside a band of Indian brothers. It stands as a tribute to those Echohawk fought with and those he lost, a sharply observed and deeply felt picture of men at arms—capturing for all time the enduring spirit and steadfast strength of the Native American warrior.

-World War I and American Art provides an unprecedented look at the ways in which American artists reacted to the war. Artists took a leading role in chronicling the war, crafting images that influenced public opinion, supported mobilization efforts, and helped to shape how the war's appalling human toll was memorialized. The book brings together paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, posters, and ephemera, spanning the diverse visual culture of the period to tell the story of a crucial turning point in the history of American art---

This book traces the history of American combat art from precolonial America to the end of the twentieth century.