Figure 1

“Russell Clark…was surprised by the number of men he saw drawing sketches. ‘It was an astonishing experience. Instead of a man here or there, there were hundreds doing such things…the great majority had never used a brush or pencil in their lives, or even thought of using them. Now they were trying to express what they had seen or been through.’”

– Official war artist Russell Clark as quoted by Brian Miller in his book about his father: “Moments in Time: Ralph Miller – Artist” 

In many ways these sections dedicated to the forgotten war artists of the Pacific War is at the heart of the website, since it concerns the artworks created by people whose names in most cases will always be hidden, or whose identity is only partly known: artworks by uncredited, anonymous soldiers who took up art to help fill the endless hours of boredom; who wanted to record what they saw while in service in the Pacific Islands to show friends and family in New Zealand on their return; who wanted to earn a few extra dollars from their wealthier American brothers in arms; or simply to try something different: to explore their creative instincts.

As mentioned elsewhere in the website, boredom is a very large part of the serviceman’s or servicewoman’s life in time of war. Not surprisingly, most of the soldier art in the Pacific was created by members of the army: those for whom many hours of inaction needed to be filled with something other than route marches, instructional lectures,  cleaning rifles, daily camp chores and reading.

What better way to escape the drudgery of life in the services in a remote part of the Pacific than to take some drawing paper and pencils out into the landscape, hone your drawing skills, and create some artworks (Figure 1)?

What better use for a SeaBees workshop than to drain a few rounds of ammunition and make a model of a cutting edge aircraft (Figure 2)?

Figure 2

Read more:

Anonymous and semi-anonymous works on paper

Anonymous and semi-anonymous works in 3D