WITNESS TO WAR

The Witness to War exhibition, film series and programs are part of Legacy of Valor, a community campaign presented in partnership with The Patterson Foundation that will inform and engage our community leading up to the dedication of Patriot Plaza, a ceremonial amphitheater at Sarasota National Cemetery.

JUNE 21-OCTOBER 27 Museum of Art, Searing Wing

The sheer volume of photography produced during World War II is staggering. Innumerable still photographs were printed and disseminated and countless feet of celluloid ran through movie cameras during the course of this pivotal moment in human history. Advances in the technical aspects of photographic film and cameras had enabled images to be produced and circulated on an industrial scale, and in a new era of total war, the camera proved to be an indispensable military instrument as valuable as any weapon in warfare. The resulting pictorial record is so immense that WWII remains indelibly vivid in the cultural imagination of Americans today.

Yet behind each of those images are the numerous and mostly unsung servicemembers

Christopher Jones Curatorial Fellow

who worked tirelessly, under duress, and often in harm’s way to record and produce them. Witness to War, running June 21 through October 27, aims to share their personal experiences by way of the photographs that they created, collected, and kept in order to record their lives at war. Rather than a sweeping exhibition that attempts to offer a single narrative of World War II in pictures, The Ringling hopes to present several accounts of the war through the personal experiences of several individual veterans who served in the military photographic services.

I had the honor of curating this exhibition and researching the collections these photographs are drawn from. The initial impetus behind Witness to War stemmed from last year’s generous gift by Warren J. and Margot Coville. Besides the hundreds of exceptional works of photojournalism and art photography, Warren also gifted a box of personal photographs from his WWII service with the 486th Bombardment Group of the 8th Air Force in England. These images ranged from portraits and snapshots of everyday life in deployment to the gripping aerial photographs of bomb strikes and air combat that Warren helped to produce. These haunting images impressed me with not just how powerful and varied the visual culture of war photography is but it also revealed to me how photography testifies to the specificity of each veteran’s individual experiences of war.

In order to find comparable collections of photographs from WWII veterans, we collaborated with the Institute on World War II and the Human Experience at Florida State University in Tallahassee. The Institute, established in 1997 to preserve memorabilia from WWII vets, has over 6,500 collections in its archives. Dr. G. Kurt Piehler and his assistant, Anne Marsh, were invaluable in my research and incredibly hospitable. They let me practically camp out in their archive, where I spent a few weeks poring over thousands of photographs in their repository.

I have to admit, at the end of each day my eyes were aching, but the photographs I kept finding were so compelling that my enthusiasm was renewed again and again. There were candid snapshots of war buddies with heartfelt inscriptions recorded on the back, scenes of indescribable suffering and destruction, and candid shots of GIs passing time in revelry and in boredom. Each of these photos was an important memento a vet chose to take and chose to keep in order to remember and perhaps even to come to terms with the war. The collection of Charlotte D. Mansfield told the story of a Woman’s Army Corps member who was among the first group of women to be trained in photography by the US Army. Another group of photographs from Stephen Winters traces the life of a soldier who served in a photography lab that advanced with the progress of American forces in the Pacific, from New Guinea to the Philippines and finally on to Japan. The more time I spent with these personal collections, the more I felt like was connecting directly to them; they became distinct, living personalities each with a unique story to tell.

Viewpoint

KENNY IRBY PHOTOGRAPHING CONFLICT

SATURDAY, JUNE 15, 10:30 AM

Historic Asolo Theater

Whether a snapshot, candid picture, an official visual record or acts of journalism, photographs that bear witness to conflict act as historical records as well as personal memoirs of the soldier-photographer. This thoughtprovoking program will touch on some of the issues surrounding photography that transcend generations and conflicts; We invite you to bring these ideas to your own experience of The Ringling’s exhibition, Witness to War.

Gallery Walk And Talk Witness To War

THURSDAY, JULY 11, 6:00 PM

THURSDAY, AUGUST 1, 6:00 PM

Museum of Art,Searing Wing

The photographs in this exhibition speak to both photography’s crucial role in the official documentation of the events of war as well as the personal stories of the soldiers who captured the images. These gallery talks will explore the dual nature of these experiences and how these photos bear witness to these distinct, yet intertwined, points of view. Free for Members

Witness To War On Film

Included with non-Member Museum admission on the day of the film. $5 for films only. Free for Members

SUNDAY, 2:00 PM

Historic Asolo Theater

In the early 1940s, Hollywood released a number of films that sought not only to entertain, but also to boost America’s patriotic spirit. Just as they had done during the Great Depression, movies gave audiences the encouragement they needed by celebrating the nation’s values, beliefs, and place in history.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 4, 2:00 PM

WAKE ISLAND Universal Pictures; Directed by John Farrow. Black and White; Not Rated; 87 minutes; 1942

SUNDAY, AUGUST 11, 2:00 PM

SO PROUDLY WE HAIL

Paramount Pictures; Directed by Mark Sandrich. Black and White; Not Rated; 125 minutes; 1943

SUNDAY, AUGUST 18, 2:00 PM

DESTINATION TOKYO

MGM/UA; Directed by Delmar Daves. Black and White; Not Rated; 135 minutes; 1944