Meet America's Official War Artists

The United States entered the First World War when it declared war on Germany on 6 April 1917. The government promptly established a Committee on Public Information to coordinate propaganda for the war effort. The committee’s Division of Pictorial Publicity soon began planning to provide the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) with official artists. The Division selected eight American artists, all of them experienced illustrators. The US Army commissioned them as captains and assigned them to record the wide-ranging activities of the AEF for posterity, as well as to help shape popular understanding of the war at home.

By spring 1918 the artists were in France, busy at work. Both the American and French high commands gave the artists carte blanche to travel where they would in the war zone and to draw whatever they saw. They took full advantage of their freedom to create images of men, machines, and landscapes from the ports of debarkation to the front lines. Ultimately they produced more than 700 sketches, drawings, and paintings. 

Here is a representative example of each of the eight artist's work.

On the Gas Alert by Harry Townsend

 

Locomotive Shop Near St. Nazaire
by Ernest Clifford Peixotto

American Troops Watering Horses
by Walter Jack Duncan

American Artillery Relieved at Deumx by Wallace Morgan

Bridge at Chateau-Thierry by J. Andre Smith

Sniper at Chateau Thierry by Wm. James Aylward

Tanks Attacking Early September 26th
by George Mathhews Harding

Walking Cases by Harvey Dunn

Source: Picturing World War I: America's First Official War Artists, 1918-1919 from the Smithsonian; full article with over 100 examples HERE