First Class
TRAVEL TOOLS, GREAT GADGETS & COOL STUFF TO DO
Art of the
American
Soldier
Big Country
Heather C. Englehart
Iraq, 2004
Master Sgt. Martin Cervantez returned
from a 90-day deployment in Afghanistan
with a trove of 18,000 photographs
he’d taken there. When he came home,
Cervantez, a combat artist in the U. S.
Army, created six paintings based on
his vast stash of images, four of which
appear in the exhibit “Art of the American
Soldier,” now on view at the National
Constitution Center in Philadelphia.
The Army’s art collection, which
includes 750,000 artifacts, documents
and images, dates back to the 1840s. But
during World War I, an o;cial program
was begun through which soldiers started
creating artistic renderings of life in the
field. During World War II, a formal art
advisory committee was established,
boasting John Steinbeck as a board
member, and in 1960, Henry R. Luce of
Time-Life Inc. donated to the Army 1,000
paintings from Life magazine, for the first
time adding civilian-produced artwork to
the collection.
“Art of the American Soldier” features
nearly 300 pieces depicting the daily lives
of soldier-artists during the last century,
from 1917 to today’s war in Afghanistan.
Following an introduction, the exhibit is
arranged in four sections: A Soldier’s Life,
A Soldier’s Duty, A Soldier’s Sacrifice and
The American Soldier.
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PHO TO CREDIT COUR TES Y OF THE NA TIONAL CONS TITU TION CEN TER
