The American experience in World War I has been largely overlooked as other wars have cast their shadows across the twentieth century. The traditional commemorative anniversaries found the nation preoccupied with other wars: in 1943, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the end of World War I, the United States was in the midst of World War II; in 1968 the war in Vietnam discouraged a fiftieth anniversary commemoration of the Great War. In 1992, however, a nation at peace can appropriately recognize the seventy-fifth anniversary of America's entry into World War I. In commemoration of that milestone the U.S. Army Center of Military History and the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History present this print set featuring the work of the eight artists officially commissioned to cover the activities of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) in Europe.

The collection of art from which these prints were selected represents a milestone in recording the history of war. For the first time artists were specifically commissioned to produce images of the battlefield during the fighting. The art itself became a propaganda weapon intended to increase popular support of the war. The depictions of subjects such as barbed wire, machine guns, gas attacks, and the vast logistical support systems that resulted from the industrialization of the war are a far cry from the knightly images of the Middle Ages or the supposed glory of the Napoleonic era.

In assembling this print set a team of historians, art curators, and printing specialists from the Center of Military History and the National Museum of American History selected two paintings by each artist. They considered the quality, content, and clarity of the artwork, and attempted to provide a representative sample of the diversity of activities of the AEF during the hostilities and of the artists' subjects. The sixteen prints in this set commemorate the sacrifices made by all those who served the American nation in World War I.

ROGER G. KENNEDY
Director, National Museum of American History

HAROLD W. NELSON
Brigadier General, USA Chief of Military History

Washington, D.C., 1992

Planning for official artists to cover the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) in World War I began in May 1917, a month after the United States declared itself a belligerent. The Committee on Public Information had been established in April to coordinate propaganda for the war effort, and the idea for official artists originated in the Committee's Division of Pictorial Publicity. The Army commissioned eight artists, most of them experienced magazine illustrators, to record the activities of the AEF in France.

In May 1918 the artists were all captains in the Corps of Engineers. Once in France they were attached to the Press and Censorship Division of the Intelligence Section of the AEF's General Staff. Armed with credentials authenticated by both French and American officials and with their rank of captains, they toured the American battlefields, using whatever transportation they could find, to create their impressions of the war. Although officially banned from participation in actual combat, more than one found the opportunity to join the troops at the front to observe firsthand the effects of close combat.

By the end of the war the artists had produced almost 500 pieces of art before returning to civilian life. Since at that time the Army had no way to properly care for the artwork it had commissioned, the Smithsonian Institution assumed responsibility for the collection, where it remains in the care of the National Museum of American History.