Black and white illustration of parachutists. Two figures in the foreground are harnessing a parachute in the wind. Other parachutists are floating from the sky.

Eyewitness to Conflict: WWII Prints from the Sheryl and John Fiegel Collection

Sept. 15–Dec. 17, 2022
J. Wayne Stark Galleries | Memorial Student Center, MSC 1110

 
“The American people need their artists now – to charge them with the grave responsibility of spelling out their anger, their grief, their greatness and their justice.”
-Francis Brennan, Director of the Office of War Information, September 1942

Within weeks of the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, the persuasive capabilities of visual artists were recognized and mobilized. Artists for Victory, Inc. was established as an emergency wartime agency, committed to a minimum of five million man-hours to support the war effort. Others followed this model, resulting in a remarkable legacy of contemporaneous accounts of the war filtered through the creative minds of some of America’s greatest artists.

This exhibition features prints of WWII subjects done during WWII by those American artists. This vast collection, donated by Sheryl and John Fiegel, illustrates the wide variety of subject interpretations depicted by the artists.

Sheryl Fiegel’s passion for honoring the men and women who served during WWII began in 1994 when she served as the head of the Air Force Art Collection. During the course of her career, Fiegel worked to further promote the works of the artists and their contributions, spearheading exhibitions at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. and hosting a five-day, multi-service tribute to honor the combat artists who served in uniform, to name a few.

Fiegel went on to amass this collection in an effort to create a permanent legacy that would honor the WWII generation through art.

“Going back to my earliest formative thought, when I first focused on artists and their output during WWII, I remember being particularly struck by the way our society came together – artists and warriors – quite a contrast and rarely paired together before WWII or since,” Fiegel said. “So, this collection of WWII prints, painstakingly assembled over the years, is not only a tribute to the artists of WWII, but it’s also a tribute to our strength as a nation, united at a point in time – however fleeting – in a common purpose.”

Inside the Exhibition

Silkscreen of soldiers with guns.
Color screenprint in blues and greens of soldiers floating from planes in the sky in parachutes.
Homefront citizens watch in shock of the warfront news on a screen in front of them.
Drawing of planes dropping missiles near oil well sites.
Drawing of soldiers loading wounded soldiers onto a boat.
Etching of soldiers sitting outside their barracks at night, talking.
Color screen print of a soldier saying goodbye to his visibly emotional family.
Drawing of a smiling soldier.
Linocut of soldiers fighting off a large, dark enemy

 

Virtual Tour

Step inside the galleries and view this exhibition virtually. Click the white “hotspots” on the floor to move around. You can find more digital resources to explore on our Virtual Tours page.