Art
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Art
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Attack on Japanese Cruisers Mogami
and Mikuma from Air
Griffith
Baily Coale #33
Charcoal, circa 1942
88-188-AG
On the last day of the battle the two heavy cruisers the Mogami
and Mikuma were attacked by American forces. The Mogami
was heavily damaged and escaped, but the Mikuma was not
so lucky.
Mikuma Capsizing
at Sunset - Battle of Midway
Griffith
Baily Coale #29
Charcoal, circa 1942
88-188-AC
Deserted and gaunt, the sea around her stained with her thick black blood, the Mikuma capsizes to port and sinks as the setting sun disappears in the west.
Blitzed Oil Tanks
Griffith
Baily Coale #24
Oil on canvas, 1942
88-188-X
The tanks filled with useless sludge burst into flames and send
their black smoke rolling up like a smaller Pear Harbor during
the attack on Midway Islands on June 4th. When the fire had ceased
and the smoke had blown away, there remained burnt trees naked
against the colorful sea, with a white sand dike surrounding the
distorted shapes - the one at the right like a dead sperm whale
in a dry pond.
Sinking
Sun
Griffith
Baily Coale #28
Oil on canvas, 1942
88-188-AB
A Marine stands at parade rest on the bow of a PT boat as she
moves slowly out to sea from Midway to give decent burial to Japanese
fliers shot down on the islands during the battle. The red ball
of the rising sun is prophetically repeated by the round disc
and spreading rays of the sinking sun.
Lieutenant Commander Griffith
Baily Coale, USNR, is credited with founding the Navy Combat
Art program. Prior to World War II he was a well-known mural painter
based in New York City. In the time of rising tensions prior to
the war he convinced Admiral Chester Nimitz to start the combat
art program as a way of documenting the war in a way that words
and photographs could not. Through the duration of the war Coale
saw action in every ocean from the sinking of U.S.S. Reuben
James in the North Atlantic to British action in Southeast
Asia. Though not at Midway during the battle, he visited the island
group before and after. His action-filled images reflect the high
emotions that surrounded the event.
Robert Benny and Lawrence Beal-Smith
worked as artists for the Abbott Laboratories project in World
War II. That program began in 1943, when prominent artists were
funded by Abbott to document various training and field operations
with the United States military's help. The works they created
helped inform and raise the morale of the public back home. For
the Battle of Midway, these two artists worked from photographs
and eyewitness accounts. Lawrence Beal Smith captures the tension
on the U.S. carriers as planes take off to engage the Japanese
fleet. Robert Benny shows the heroic moment of lone American plane
attacking a Japanese ship amid the violence and noise of that
much larger battle.
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11 May 2009