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The Art of War

The paintings of Tom Lea, Life magazine's artist-correspondent during World War II.

By Rebecca Maksel
airspacemag.com, February 06, 2009


Tom Lea
 

By October Lea reached Italy. “I told [General Doolittle] all I wanted in Italy was to make a study of a fighter strip newly taken from the enemy, for my story of fighter planes across the world…. At 0710 General Born and his crew showed up, and we took off at 0720 in a scarred old Fortress that had 43 missions and seven Nazi planes painted on its battered nose…. And finally landed at Grotaglia…a big field that had the hell knocked out of it. We were there three hours—I took photos, made sketches, and color notes in the rain, amid the ruins. I can make a very fine painting of it, worth all the trouble I’ve had to get there…. Sometime after 1400 we took off again, making a wide swing over southern Italy. We coasted Sicily from Messina to Gerbini, then cut in and flew overland to Gela. Some of the country around Catania was so battle-scarred that from the air it looked like a cratered landscape on the moon.”

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    Comments

    What an excellent well written account of the life and works of Tom Lea who is an underappreciated artist and writer of the World War II era.

    Posted by Margaret Kurtin on February 15,2009 | 10:53AM

    The pictures and the captions tell us a lot about the man himself. A worthy representative I think, of a very worthy generation.

    Posted by Mike Houlding on August 26,2009 | 08:05PM

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