Historical Society Speaker Series Focuses On Army Art Collection

While being shot at in Afghanistan, Master Sgt. Martin Cervantez didn’t exactly have time to stop and think about what was going on. He was focused on the task at hand.

Sketching and taking photographs.

Afterward, though, he was amped. Cervantez is the Army’s artist-in-residence, one person who documents Army history through art, and to fully capture the life of American soldiers he tries to go out on as many missions as he can.

“It’s like being a pro athlete,” he said. “If you’re on the bench, you’re not in the game.”

Cervantez just passed his 25th anniversary with the Army, and during that time he’s held many positions, including drill sergeant. He didn’t always plan on joining the Army, though. Cervantez grew up in Detroit and knew he wanted to go out in the world.

He enlisted shortly after high school, after a recruiter at his school told him the Army has positions for artists. Cervantez hadn’t thought at all about joining the Army, but liked sketching, so he signed up as an illustrator knowing nothing about the military.

“My exposure to the military before that was just from M*A*S*H,” he said.

His earliest tasks included illustrating leaflets and pamphlets during the Cold War to distribute as propaganda. Now Cervantez sketches and takes pictures of soldiers, and then uses those as inspiration for paintings. He began painting fairly recently, when he was asked to become the artist-in-residence because he could sketch and draw.

“I understood color and layers, I knew how to layout a picture,” he said. “But I’ve really tapped into this whole new side of myself.”

Cervantez talked about his time with the military and his artwork Thursday night at the Historical Society of Rockland County. He and Sarah Forgey, curator of the Army Art Collection, were speaking as part of the historical society’s ongoing Thursday night speaker series.

“First off, yes, the Army has an art collection,” Forgey said, adding that there are about 16,000 pieces in the collection, which is a combination of artists brought in to document war and soldiers who create art in their spare time.

Forgey said the collection is spread out in various Army museums around the country, as well as out on loan to exhibits, schools and museums. She said the National Museum of the United States Army, which is scheduled to open in 2015 in Fort Belvoir, Virginia, will house the collection, with different exhibits on display throughout the year.

The two were brought in after a few trustees of the historical society saw them interviewed in a documentary about the Army Art Collection. They were also brought in because they vaguely tie into the society’s current exhibit, Ghost Army.

The exhibit chronicles a battalion sent of artists and actors were sent to Europe in 1944 solely to deceive the enemy into thinking the Army was located where it was not by using rubber tanks, fake artillery and sound effects. The work of the Ghost Army was not made public for around 50 years, up until about 10 years ago.

Besides involving art, Cervantez said he sees a similarity between the Ghost Army and some of the work he has done, specifically the propaganda.

“It’s about deception,” he said.

Because some countries in Europe sent artists to chronicle wars, the United States decided to do the same in World War I, marking the first time the U.S. had a program for artists to document war. The U.S. sent eight artists that war with the instructions that nothing is off limits and to “Go to war, bring back art,” Forgey said. They sent back around 500 pieces, which the Army donated to the Smithsonian.

In World War II, the US sent 43 artists, some civilian and some soldier, to document the war. Three months after being deployed, Congress cut funding on the program and told people to stop making art, sending the soldier artists to different units. The civilian artists, however, didn’t have anywhere to go.

Life Magazine heard about the artists overseas and offered jobs to all 19 of them, and 17 accepted. Six months later, Congress reversed its not art policy, and said if soldiers wanted to in their spare time they could create art as long as it didn’t interfere with their duties. From World War II, around 3,000 pieces were collected, and an additional 1,000 were submitted to Life that were later donated to the Army Art Collection.

“It set the foundation for the Army Art Collection,” Forgey said, adding more art was submitted during World War II than any other war.

There was no art program during the Korean War, but for the Vietnam War, the U.S. set up 10 teams of between three to five artists who toured Vietnam sketching and taking pictures. They then traveled to Hawaii to paint works for the collection. Four artists traveled around during the Persian Gulf War.

“Since Desert Storm, we’ve hard one artist-in-residence at all times,” Forgey said.

Since there’s just one artist, she added that there hasn’t been as much documentation of the current wars as she’d like. Another reason for that is the collection is getting only a few submissions from soldiers.

“It might just be they don’t know about us, or we don’t know about them,” she said.

If there is someone willing to donate artwork to the collection, Forgey said they’ll even provide supplies, although some soldiers make due with what they have already. One piece she showed in a slideshow was a painting submitted on canvas cut from a tent by a soldier. One thing Forgey has noticed is that no matter the war or year, soldiers tend to focus on similar subjects.

“It’s connecting soldiers from generation to generation,” she said.

Forgey also said there are no restrictions on subject matter.

“We get the human element of war,” she said. “It’s not these grand battle scenes, but it’s these little funny moments. I showed that painting of a soldier in a bathtub. There are a lot of ones that come from camp life, people shaving or just waiting around.”

Even without restrictions, Cervantez has certain restrictions he sets for himself. He said he won’t paint or sketch anything relating to suicide bombings because he doesn’t want to help make a martyr out of the bomber. He also said he doesn’t want to document an injured or dead soldier because he doesn’t want the enemy to see what they’ve done and possibly use it as propaganda.

Cervantez said on a 12-hour mission, he typically takes 500-600 photos, which he then burns onto DVDs and hands out to the soldiers and officers. He said it helps him form relationships with the troops.

“It also is something they can give to their families to show them what they’re doing,” Cervantez said. “They’re not out there snapping pictures, they’re pulling triggers.”

The Ghost Army exhibit is open until October 16 at the Historical Society of Rockland County. The society is also planning a special event for Sunday, September 18 at the Lafayette Theater in Suffern, where a screening of a documentary called The Ghost Army will air. More information on the event can be found at rocklandhistory.org and ghostarmy.org.