A Combat Artist in World War II - Softcover

Reep, Edward

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0813154537 ISBN 13: 9780813154534

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky, 2014

Synopsis

Many artists have fought in wars, and renowned painters have recorded heroic scenes of great battles, but those works were usually done long after the battles were waged. Artists have also been commissioned to visit, briefly, war-torn areas and make notes of the devastation and horror. Yet few artists who were members of any armed services have drawn or painted daily while 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. He was shelled, mortared, and strafed. 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 at first hand 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 made more memorable in Combat Artist by the many painfully vivid paintings and drawings that accompany the text. Reep's battlefield drawings show us, with unrelenting honesty, the horrors and griefs―and the bitter comedy―of that war fought to end wars that only spawned more.

About this title

From Library Journal:

America's combat artists were surely the most unsung soldiers of World War II. Author Reep sketched and watercolored his way across North Africa and Italy in order to record the Fifth Army's activities for the Army Historical Section. In this informal and anecdotal autobiography, he proves to be as adept with a typewriter as with a brush. The book is amply illustrated with Reep's deft and curiously appealing drawings, typically late 1930s in technique. One wishes that there were more, and that the work of his fellow artists was also represented. Raymond L. Puffer, U.S. Air Force History Prog., Los Angeles
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0813154537
• ISBN 13: 9780813154534
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224