Relating Thomas Calloway Lea with War
Thomas Calloway Lea was born in 1907 in El Paso, Texas. He became a well-known career artist, writer, and novelist who excelled as a portraitist, illustrator, landscapist and muralist. Besides, he later became a World War II correspondent, a poet, and a historian. Lea was introduced to art by his high school teacher and his desire escalated when he joined Art Institute of Chicago where he studied and later apprenticed as an artist under his tutor, John Norton. Lea has travelled over a thousand miles around the globe courtesy of his artwork and his engagement as a war correspondent. This paper will discuss Leas’ link to war concentrating on assignments he has as a war artist correspondent.
Thomas Lea received a Rosenwald Foundation award in 1940 for painting authentic Southwest figures in their landscape. He declined the offer after he was invited by “Life Magazine to board a United States Navy Destroyer in North Atlantic as a correspondent artist.” (Cemetery) This was the first of his many missions across the globe was as a war artist. Lea’s sharp attention to writing and painting was a …show more content…
He was aboard the USS Hornet during the air and sea attacks in Guadalcanal, and he not only witnessed it, but also documented about the events that led to the sinking of the USS Wasp. He traveled along with the United States Forces, Fighter and Bomber crews during that time. In addition, Lea got a chance to travel to China to assist in the war effort, “he witnessed and recorded the events of the U.S invasion of the Island of Peleliu by the First and the Seventh Marine Division.”(TSHA) One of the paintings he documents while in China was the “2000 Yard Stare (1944), oil on canvas,” that showed a portrait of the U.S soldiers at war. Besides, he also painted notable pictures of World War II leaders such as the Chinese leader, Chiang Kai- Shek and his