Exhibition of U.S. war paintings from MacArthur's New Guinea campaign

F O R E WO R D BAR S E MI LLER , Captain, COR P S O F ENGINEERS For the records and pictorial history of this present conflict, we shall be able in the future to amply reward our search by turning to the tremendous amount of 1. DU S T Y R O A D - - W a t e r c o l o r - - - - July, 1943 work amassed by the illustrators, draughtsmen and photographers, who have taken Engineer troops returning to work after noon chow in the Port such pains and risks to document, as completely as possible, for posterity the story Moresby area. of this war. That such men are employed on this important aspect of the struggle means that the painter in his work should be free to devote himself wholly to his duty as an artist; to express through his own emotions and experiences those aspects 2. A I R B O R N E S U P P L Y - - Pen Drawing - - July, 1 943 of the scene that he considers significant elements which his acute power of per- Supply drop from B-25 on a New Guinea airstrip. ception enables him to select and present as the synthesis of a particular moment. It reflects great credit on the organisation which has appointed these three painters 3. E N E M Y A I R A T T A C K - O i l - - - December 15, 1943 to allow them that necessary freedom to thus express themselves as artists. Whether, The beachhead at Arawe was dive-bombed and straffed the I as a result, these pictures which have been executed are great war pictures, is a morning of the invasion of New Britain Island. question beside the point. Wh a t is important, however, is that they have attempted, with a great measure of success, to say something that is of real significance, and which will add to the sum total of our common experience. 4. SANDS O F A R A W E - O i l - - - December, 1 943 Though it is natural that all of these pictures are not of the same quality, they do Their world an hour ago disputed for to the death. Now they all possess a power and a force which is refreshing to see. It is interesting also share it for eternity, useless as basalt washed by the gray sea. to observe that in an age in which war has become so vast and complex, with its tremendous employment of machines, these men have concerned themselves chiefly 5. WO U N D E D MAN , Target Hill, Cape Gloucester - O i l - January, 1944 with the human element . . . the tragedy and futility of man. Stunned and bewildered, a tough fighter of the Marine Corps is There is a tremendous emotional reaction in some of these paintings in relation to helped to the rear by medical corpsmen. that theme. There has been little attempt to regard the elemental factors of their pictures in an abstract approach, and, perhaps because they have worked and lived 6. D E A D J A P A N E S E G U N N E R , Cape Gloucester - O i l - Dec. 26, 1 943 under the conditions in which the ordinary soldier exists, they have become so much a part of it all that they have tended to direct their vision and their feeling A symbol of futility when living flesh must stand inadequate against to expressing as strongly as possible that human, emotional point, the impact of war. It would not be proper here to commend one painting more than another, for one feels this exhibition, as a whole, as the sincere and very often successful attempts 7. ASCENS I ON O F P V T . J ONE S - - O i l - - March, 1944 by men who show themselves to be artists and not simply good painters, in their Phantasy of a dead quartermaster trooper, whose soul is imagined recording of the emotional impact that war, in all its horror and tragedy, has made homeward bound, via amphibious jeep. upon them. W e cannot expect every artist, however good, to maintain a continual high level of pictures, in which such intense emotional reaction is felt, for the 8. MA I N L AND I N T E R L U D E - - O i l - - June, 1944 necessary conditions which go to make that expression successful, such as oppor tunity, the scene presented, and the desire to paint it, do not always coincide. But Modern Mars and Venus symbolizing an inevitable problem in each of these artists has shown that, in the coincidence of those conditions, they are wartime. capable of achieving, as they have achieved, some outstanding work. W e in Australia must consider ourselves fortunate to have the opportunity to see 9. BOMBARD I E R - - O i l - - - - May, 1944 these pictures, for, though they naturally concern themselves with the sacrifice and Wa r can be abstract, completely impersonal, as it is with the strike the sufferings of the American soldier, the Australian soldier, as a brother in arms, is making those sacrifices also . . . and for the common man all over the world it missions of our heavy units. is his story. Our thanks to the authorities and the artists concerned who have made this exhibition possible, can be best expressed by our seeing these pictures and 10. I N T E R C E P T I ON - - O i l - - - - May, 1944 assimilating the message they have to give. Waist gunners of a B-25 fight off enemy break-thru of fighter planes. T . RUS S ELL DRYSDALE.