DREAM OF FAR RIVER: YANGTZE. [Offset Lithographic Print Of The Yangtze River at

[San Francisco 1968, Little]. Color lithographic print,"NEW" unused example, flawless, painted 1943, 28 x 39.5 cm.,signed in block. FIRST & ONLY RARE EDITION . *** **** *** . . A STUNNING WORLD WAR 2 ARTIST'S COLOR EXAMPLE OF . . . "DREAM OF A RIVER: YANGTZE [CHONGCHING, CHINA, 1943] . . . SIGNED AND DATED IN BLOCK . * In 1942, Tom Lea was appointed a World War 2 war correspondent and artist. He was assigned to cover the Pacific war of Americans fighting against Japanese. When his work there was finished, he was then re-assigned to the China-Burma-India [C.B.I.] theater under Major General Claire E. Chennault in Kunming. In China his mission was to graphically record images that reflected China and the American effort against the Japanese. . Lea left India and boarded a 23rd Air Force bomber and flew over "THE HUMP" [Himalayan mountains] to Szechwan province and landed in Chungking, October 1943. . He was astonished at the grand confluence of the Yangtze River [Chang jiang] in Chongching. He was billeted at the "Press Hostel" with other foreign press reporters. He lived in a small, dingy and gray damp room. Thousands of Chinese filling the streets, fleeing the city before the Japanese invaded. It was rainy and miserably cold. . While in Chongking [Chongching] There painted two fine paintings, see #3 & 4 below. While in Chunking he also sketched Madame Chiang Kai-shek [Mrs. Jiang Jieshi] and afterword sketched Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. Three days later he was in Kunming. . In Kunming he was billeted in a troop hostel by the 14th Air Force airbase and headquarters of General Chennault. The next morning he met with and sketched Chennault [see #1 below]. . In late November 1943, Lea flew in an A.A.F. "FLYING TIGER" C-47 from Kweilin. Upon arrival in the cold rain, at Kweilin airfield he stated: "Through the airplane window I looked out and saw-and found it hard to believe what I saw. Those misty cone-shaped mountains that soared up from a horizontal table of earth so abruptly and fantastically in the great landscapes of the Sung [Soong Dynasty] masters.they were true. Because there they were all around the airstrip. " . There at the airstrip he sketched #2 below, upon closing his sketchbook, he hurried to the charcoal stove in the alert shack, his fingers stiff with the cold. From there he ".watched a gang of coolies wearing straw hats as big as parasols there in the rain, were at work carrying little hand baskets full of wet gravel, moving earth basket by basket, to smooth the end of a runway where iron birds took wing roaring up into the sky to fight Japs. I was sitting alone at the end of the airstrip at Kweilin. I was gazing at the mountains, believing them, drawing wondering how old they were. Up in the sky it was Tex Hill's gang coming in after a run on Japanese coastal shipping, I watched them swoop in landing, one after another. The sound suddenly and unaccountably sent my mind to another air base and another painting I had made there." . *** Although these paintings and sketches were done in 1943, they had never been published. In 1968 Lea was encouraged to publish lithographic images of his favorite sketches, drawings and paintings. . The four below items were among his best images. The set was published for the first time in 1968. . Please inquire at our website, as we have all of these in stock. . 1. GENERAL CHENNAULT, Sketched at Kunming, [November, 1943] . 2. AIRSTRIP AT KWEILIN: Sketched November 18, 1943 . 3. GRANDFATHER CHINA: Sketch of either Liuchow or Kweilin, . [November, 1943.] . 4. DREAM OF A FAIR RIVER: YANGTZE: Sketched View From . Chongking of the confluence of the mighty Yangtze . River, [November, 1943] . *** Color photos are posted to our website . *** REFERENCES: . For more on Tom Lea see Wikipedia and also Tom Lea dot com /the-artist/historical-photographs/the institute devoted to his works. . *.…