did you know that there is an Army art program that the Army maintains tens of thousands of pieces of art . What's in the Army art collection and how can you see it for answers to these questions and more Army art insights . Stay tuned . Welcome to the U . S . Army history and Heritage podcast . The official podcast of the United States Army Center of Military History . The Center of Military History writes and publishes the Army's official history manages the US Army Museum enterprise and provides historical support throughout the U . S . Army . Hello everyone and welcome back to the United States Army history and Heritage podcast . I'm lee Reynolds , the strategic communications officer for the Center of Military History . In this episode , I'm speaking with Sarah forgey , the chief army art curator within the Army museum enterprise . We'll be talking about the vast amount of artwork the Army maintains where the army gets the art and why there is an Army art program . We'll welcome Sarah thanks for joining me . Thanks for having me . All right , this is exciting . This is um I've had a chance to walk walk through um where you maintain the art and see a lot of this . So it's unbelievable And I think our our listeners are going to really be interested in this topic . Excellent . Always a little bit awkward talking about art without having the art in front of us to see . But I'll do the best I can to be descriptive . Right And so before we get into the discussion um let me just tell folks who you are . So Sarah forgey is the chief art curator for the US Army Museum Enterprise . She began working as an assistant curator for the army art collection in 2007 and became its lead curator in 2010 in her current role . MS . Four G . Is the subject matter expert on art for the Army Museum Enterprise , Supporting art collecting exhibitions and conservation efforts at the Army Museum Enterprise , museums and all the museum support centers . I say all but there's two of them . So which is where we are right now at Fort Belvoir in Virginia and then the other one is anniston Alabama . So although most of the art is stored at the Museum Support center here at Fort Belvoir . And also let's let's just get into it . So Sarah first and foremost I know this is a surprise to me when I first started with the Center of Military history that we have an army art program . Why what is it about ? That is the question and I can't tell you how much time I spend at cocktail parties answering that question whenever anybody asks me what I do for a living . Um So yeah the army art collection , you know we have we have a ton of artwork , we have about 35,000 pieces maintained by um the army museums and by the museum support centers and it's a long history . Um you know I did I wasn't aware that we had an army art collection until I It started working for the army , it's not something that you study in art history programs . Um so that was a joy to uh to learn about that and to you know , have spent the past 15 years now working with this collection here . Um you know , I have to get into the history a little bit to start off just to , you know . Exactly , yeah . So we do have a modern program . I'll get to that shortly . But um you know , to understand how we got to where we are , we got to go into the history a little bit . So , you know , the army has had art and collected art ever since . There's been an army , you know , soldiers decorated , you know powder horns and you know , their bags that they carried as early as you know , the Revolutionary War . It's a tradition that goes back , it goes back in europe as well as well as history painters who painted actions that armies and navies , you know , military actions . Right ? So this a lot of this art isn't just an artist going out and painting something . It's soldiers decorating their items . It is , it is so you know , it's a two , it's a two part thing . We have , you know , we have soldiers who decorate things and we have artists who , you know , either our soldiers themselves or who are civilians and you know follow the military and create artwork based on what they and what they're doing . Um so you know , in the United States , that tradition , you know , it , You know , it goes back really as early as the revolutionary war . Um , the earliest works we have in the collection here at Fort Belvoir . The earliest eyewitness works are um some 12 pieces depicting the Mexican war um by an artist named James walker . Now , James walker was a trained artist who happened to be in Mexico City um during the siege and he painted what he saw . You know , he was working as a translator , but you know , his , since he was trained as an artist , that was what he decided to do and his artworks are incredibly historically accurate because he was a witness to the events . We still have people contacting us , you know , to view these artworks and see , you know , how are the troops actually positioned ? That's how accurate these are . No kidding . Oh , that's fantastic to know , wow . And you know , we're currently in the 175th anniversary of the Mexican War . So , um , one of the things that we're doing as we highlight those campaigns were showcasing the army art that you're talking about . So people can see that on our social media . I usually plug that at the end , but I thought this is a good time to bring that . Oh yeah , definitely , definitely . We'll keep plugging it here . Uh , the uh , you know , that tradition continued in the civil war . Um many people know , you know , you know , we talk about Matthew brady's Civil War photographs . Um We had artists who were following the armies as well , painting what they saw publishing them and you know harper's uh Harper's and Leslie's and um all the publications of the day . So we have some of those works in our collection as well . Um but the important distinction in the 19th century is that these artists were working for magazines , they were working for um you know , independent commissions . You know , they were selling their work to people other than the army . The difference came in the 20th century when the army started running its own art programs and that began in World War One . But why did they transition to that ? Why did they want that program ? Um Well , in some , in some ways it was because the european armies were doing it and you know , we were joining in , we were joining in the war as it was already occurring . Um and we decided to do the same thing . There was also there was also really a call within the art community to have artists recording the war and to have , you know , and to have artists be involved . Um So the program for World War One was established and they chose eight artists , they commissioned them as captain captains in the Corps of Engineers and they sent them all over to France and their uh their instructions were really kind of revolutionary , they were told , you know , paint what you see paint in whatever style , whatever medium you choose now . You know , the artists ended up kind of choosing their own specialties . So like we had a couple artists who you know , chose to paint , you know , more landscape type scenes , we had a couple that chose to focus on , you know , the front line scenes and others others focused on , you know , machinery , things like that . Um the artists found that there was a little bit more censorship of their work once it was sent back to Washington than they wanted there to be . So , you know , um and that their work wasn't shown to the extent that they wanted it to , but not exactly nothing was changed . Nothing was , it just wasn't shown to the extent that they expected it to be . Um So while the program had some really high ideals , it didn't quite meet , it didn't quite live up to it in in actuality now those artworks , those World War One artworks , there was no army art collection at the end of World War One . Uh So those works ended up being turned over to the custody of the Smithsonian who still maintains them to this day . Uh they showed them a few years ago for the centennial of World War One . The Air and Space Museum had a beautiful exhibit about the World War One artworks . Um So after World War One , the program was basically disbanded in between the wars . Um But World War Two brought it back with a vengeance . They um you know kind of the same thing . The art community felt a call to be involved and um artists began designing posters and there was a big effort to have the illustrators of the day involved in poster design . But a lot of artists really wanted it to go beyond that . They wanted to be there on the front lines covering the war . Just like just like the previous generation had done during the posters . So what were those recruiting posters ? They're recruiting posters , morale like the Liberty loan posters . Um You know that's probably the most well known effort as liberty loan posters , you know both in World War One and World War Two . Yeah . Yeah exactly . Um So World War Two the program was even larger than World War One . The War department they put together a group advisory and art advisory committee um consisting of you know museum curators , artists , you know George Steinbeck was on the committee . Um And they Charge 42 artists who were among the best artists . You know some of the some were very well known artists of the day . Um so they chose people some of whom were already in the army , some of whom were civilians and they were given a special commission . 42 of them and they sent them um all over the world to document what the army was doing at the time . Yeah . It was very exciting . The artists were , you know , really into it . You know , a lot of them they were saying , you know , we're going to go out , we're going to be , you know , we're going to be you know , doing these great works like Goya or but then like many things um funding was cut to the program just a few months into it unfortunately . Um So that left that left us with an issue as far as these artists go . So we had , you know the are the artists who were already in the army were kind of absorbed into their units . They were assigned other duties . Now they were told that they could keep painting and drawing , you know , as long as it didn't conflict with their primary duties and most of the artists chose to do that . The civilian artists had no commission . And that's when Life Life magazine stepped in because they already had artist correspondence in the field and they wanted to expand their program . So they took on the commissions of the civilian artists . Um I've heard about the Life Art program but I didn't know the origin of it . Yeah . So they all began as army artists . And then um funding was cut and then they became Life Magazine artists . Yeah . Yeah . It was , I mean it was a good gig if you could get it certainly . Uh so those artists um as well , they you know , Life Life would give them you know their uh their assignment and you know the army or you know the navy whoever they were assigned to wood . Um Help them out with you know transportation building stuff like that . And um many of their works were published in life magazine during the war . Now we maintain that collection . Life magazine donated it to the d . o . d . in 1960 . Um And the army , the army was luckily assigned the job of maintaining the entire collection . So you know beautiful works that depict Navy Marine Corps . You know the Marine Corps Pelloux landing paintings by tom lee . These are iconic works but they're maintained by the army . The Marines are a little sore about that . We do you know we do we're happy to loan them to the Marine Corps Museum . So it's more than just army collection . It's it's military . Yeah the Life collection , the Life collection in particular has works from the other services . But the rest of our collection is primarily army . You know if we were offered works related to another service we would offer them to the art collection of the other service . But the life collection was donated to the D . O . D . With the stipulation it has to all stay together . We don't want you know 60 pieces going here 100 going here . We want it all to stay together . Um So we maintain custody and we loan it as needed . Um so yeah after uh so that was the life collection that was donated to us in 1960 . Meanwhile we've still got those soldier artists out in the field during World War II and some of them were really aggressive about getting to the front lines in order , to you know . we had one particular artist um Rudolf von ripper who would kind of , you know , go up to the front lines and he'd disappear for weeks or months at a time . No one would hear from him . And they'd be like , what is going on with this guy , I wonder where he is . And then he'd show up , you know , just randomly with a bunch of artworks , leave them off and then go disappear again . Well what would they do ? So they're out there , you know , I'm sure they have a weapon with them . Um and they're out there with troops , but they wouldn't just sit there and and and set up a tripod and start painting . So it depends on the artist . Um So you know , they had to carry their own materials . And this is true to this day as well . Um You know , so generally they're carrying stuff that they can easily fit in , you know , that they can easily carry . So they're working rather than working in like oil paints on canvas . Most of them are working on paper . They're working , you know with pen with graphite pencils , they're working with water colors . Uh but they're also facing issues as well . You know , sometimes if you're working in really hot conditions , really cold conditions , you know , your art materials may not work as well as you expect them to . You know , we had one artist Edward Reap who um he liked to paint in watercolor but he was covering the italian campaign and it was too cold in the winter that his water colors would freeze before they adhere to the paper . So when you look at his work , it's you know , depending on the time of year , it's watercolor watercolor , watercolor . Then he switched to just ink over the winter of the italian campaign . Could he go back later and absolutely updated with the water color . Absolutely , yeah , yeah , yeah . And that's the artist choice . You know , some of our artists um you know like to you know kind of take sketches when they're out in the field . They kind of kind of as a form of note taking and then they go back to their studio and you know , turn it into a more finished artwork . Do you have any of the sketchbooks ? We do . Yeah , we do . And those are my particular favorite treasures in the collection . It's like it's like reading a diary entry . But in visual form , you know , because it's it's so immediate , you know , you can see exactly what was going on . You can see the mistakes that the artist made . You can see when , you know , when he or she I say he because we're talking about World War Two and at the time it was it was just just men in the World War Two program . But you know we have had female artists in the more modern modern program . Um You can see when the artist has made mistakes or changed his mind or you know , you can see the little notes that they take , you know , just to remind themselves later . This is so and so and you know this is what was going on . I love those little nodes , you know as as a curator , you live by that stuff like something that the artist jobs down . If you can read it . You know , as long as you can read the notes , you know you can that's the stuff that you dig into and well who was the soldier , what else can I find out about him ? And that goes into your exhibit labels and you're cataloging records and everything . It's it's fascinating . Um Yeah , so World War Two was a very active time period for the army art program . We had those artists in the field . We also had um yank magazine had artists um yank magazine , the enlisted man's magazine had a lot of artists who some of them were doing the same thing going out into the field creating documentary artwork and some of them were doing cartoons . Now we have a huge collection of Yank magazine material as well . It's about 3000 pieces . Um so that is some really neat material that a lot of its cartoons . Yeah , you know , some are funny , some are , some are products of their time and you know , they would be offensive to modern audience . Um but you know , they're they're interesting in that they are products of the time . They're a glimpse into what the enlisted man was , you know , experiencing during the time and then moving forward and we did the same thing now after World War Two , did the art program go away or is it now firmly established ? It is firmly established now , right after World War Two , it did go away . But remember after World War One we gave the art to the Smithsonian , well after World War Two we had way more art , you know , we had about 3000 works of art that were turned in by those uh by those soldier artists who were in the field . We had the yank collection we had and you know , the army's just accumulating art at this point and they don't really know what to do with it . So that's when they established an army art collection . Um so at that point , uh they started formally collecting , you know collecting soldier artwork , gathering it together , you know , codifying the program to the extent that they could in 1946 um in the korean war there was an effort to get a similar program going , but it never really took off . So we have not very good coverage of the korean war . Now there were a couple artists , one working for stars and stripes , There was an artist who was a Department of Defense civilian and he was over there and he had some art training and he recognized that we didn't have an art program , so somebody should do it . So he created some artworks . Um , but because we didn't have a formal program in the korean war , that is an area that we don't have a lot of artwork covering . And then like Life magazine didn't see an interest . They didn't know stars and stripes did . Um , I think colliers had a had a korean war program as well , but no , Life magazine did not . Uh , the Vietnam war was when the next really big army art program effort took off . Um once we got into Vietnam we established um a program through the army arts and crafts program and that was what they did this time was kind of cool . They put together teams of artists . Um so you know , for the World War One artists , it was World War One and World War Two , it was a rather solitary experience . You know , you would have a group , but when you go out into the field , you're on your own . Um , so they learned from that and they decided to put the artists together into teams so that everybody has their , you know , artist battle buddy . And so they put together teams of artists . Uh , and this was something that art that they drew from active duty soldiers . So some were draftees , some had , some had volunteered and these people , you know , they kind of advertised for it and people applied , they sent in a portfolio of their work and they were selected for the team . So over the course of the Vietnam War , we had nine teams of artists . Each team had 4-5 people on it . There was , you know , an officer who was always chosen as a supervisor and you know , three or four enlisted enlisted man . And they would , yeah , it was a pretty sizable teams . Um , you know , and they would have enough that if they needed to send two people on one mission today and two people on a different mission , they could cover both . But in general , the teams traveled together , they would deploy to Vietnam for 90 days per team . And while they were there , they didn't stay with a particular unit . They usually , um , they usually went around and covered , you know , they might cover one unit for , you know , a couple of weeks and then go someplace else and what's going on over here , they just tried to get out and you know , talk to soldiers and you know , take photographs because at this point they're all carrying camera , World War Two , they were not necessarily carrying cameras . Yeah , exactly . So some of them , some of them sketched anyway and we do have some amazing Vietnam era sketchbooks . Um , but some chose to take camera , take pictures using cameras and use that as their reference material . Um , so then after 90 days in country , the entire team , you know , picked up and they went to a studio together and they spent about 90 days in the studio taking their sketches there . Um , there , you know , their photographs , their notes and turning them into finished paintings . Um , so from the Vietnam era , you know , we have more works on canvas because they had that time in the studio World War Two , everybody was turning in what they could carry . So we don't have a lot of works on campus , we have a lot of , you know , water colors and sketches , stuff like that . And then when did the Army Artist In residence program that began in 1993 , that was established ? So after the Vietnam War , we kept that team , that team , uh , that team of artists scenario going and you know , we would have , you know , generally one team a year , maybe two teams a year covering Whatever the army was doing . So we sent teams of artists all over the world documenting what the army was doing throughout the 1970s , as well . Um that continued up until the Persian gulf war . And at that point , um , you know , knowing that knowing that we were deploying soldiers , they got a team of artists together , they sent one team over to cover Operation Desert Shield . And then we sent another team to cover Operation Desert Storm . Now they didn't get there in time to actually see the action . But they got to cover a lot of yeah , the administration program missed those couple of days . Yeah . Yeah . The bureaucracy did not did not uh did not keep up with the couple of days of action . But you know , they were there in time to you know , to see the aftermath . They talked to the soldiers who participated . You know , they they were able to create artworks based on it . Um so after those two , those two teams of artists got back , they had an exhibit of their artwork that was at the Old Guard museum up in , up in Arlington Virginia . And that exhibit was attended by the Chief of staff of the army who at the time was General Gordon Sullivan . And he was very , very impressed with those artists work . And you know , he met them , he talked to them um he was so impressed with what they were doing that he established the army artist program um which you know , that created a permanent position on our staff here at the center of Military history for an active duty artist . So it's one artist . One artist , yep . So since 1993 we've had one artist at any time , one at a time . Okay , now I have to ask this question that comes up . Um So we have an artist , but why is why is it relevant to have an artist today when we have I could I could see in the 17th 18th 19th century . You know you need paintings , you need drawings so people understood what it looked like and what soldiers life was and all those things . But now we have cameras , we have video cameras , we have drones , we've got all this now . So why do we still maintain or need an army ? Art ? That is the second most often question that I'm asked the second most asked question . Um You know it's another way of documenting , it's a you know it's bringing somebody else's personal vision into into documentation . So you know if your document , I don't want to imply that photography can be fine art because it certainly can . But if you're an art , a photographer for the U . S . Army , you're doing documentary photography , photography and you know what you snap with your photo . You know , you're not going back , you're not you know you're not changing it . You know , to make it look more artistic , you know your photograph is your documentation . If you're an army artist you can use a little more artistic license . You can um And by that I don't mean lie , I mean , you know you can take different aspects of a scene that may not be within the frame of the camera . So you know you're the artist and you've been you know , you've spent two weeks hanging out with this unit and watching what they do and you know , something interesting happens , you know , yesterday something interesting happens tomorrow , something interesting happens on different days . You can take parts of those scenes and incorporate them all into one interesting slice of life . It is a slice of life . Yeah . And an artist is able to , an artist is able to you know use that artistic license and you know take little pieces and put them together , synthesize them into into one scene . All right , well , that makes sense . I I definitely understand that . Yeah . And each artist that you ask will have their own their own perspective on , you know , why his or her job is important and why his or her job differs drastically from what the photographers do now , this art collection . So over time we've You've collected up , you said about 35,000 pieces of art And they're stored between mainly here at Fort Belvoir , we have about 16,000 pieces at Fort Belvoir . Um there is a large collection of the West Point Museum . Um they in general . The West Point Museum's collection is very heavy on 19th century . Very strong on 19th century . And the collection here at Fort Belvoir is very strong on 20th centuries . So the two collections really Complement one another very very well in that way . Um And then the rest of it is uh all over at the different army museums . So you know artworks that you know are related to military police might be on display at the military police museum or infantry pieces at the National Infantry Museum into a lot of government offices . Uh here in the we were recording in the Washington dc area . Um But also when I was on active duty , you know around the world I would see artwork but my understanding is those weren't the originals . Yes . Um We have fortunately we have the technology to make really really like high quality reproductions . And generally people , you know people looking at them , you often can't tell that you're looking at a reproduction versus an original painting . And that's great because it allows us to keep the originals in the museum environment to ensure their preservation . Well at the same time putting the artwork out there in somebody's office or you know in a hallway , conference room etcetera and allowing you know the army and you know the american people who see them to enjoy those works . You learn from them and there are a lot of them out there and people may not realize it . But if start paying attention to you know to to what's hanging up in the walls and the offices and things and it's any army building you walk into . You will probably see works from our collection on the walls . Yeah and most likely reproductions . Um But um and then the National Museum of the U . S . Army , the new museum that opened up near right next to Fort Belvoir here . Uh so they showcase your art as well so people can go there and see it . Yes they did . Uh The inaugural exhibit and their temporary gallery um was titled uh it was titled The Art of Soldiering . And that was and I actually curated that exhibit and it was an excellent opportunity um to showcase our artwork . And you know to show some of the best pieces from the from the soldier art , from the soldier artists from the you know the civilian war correspondents as well as pieces that you know are decorated by soldiers . So that was something that we did with that exhibit as you know we had a humvee door that a soldier decorated . I'd love first the exhibit was amazing . It really was . And the artwork I was just blown away by the quality of the artwork and how it just pulls you in and and it feels like you're there . You know . It does . Yeah . And that's the that's the best thing the most amazing thing that this art collection does and you know that exhibiting it does is that it can bring together generations of soldiers . So you know you can visit that exhibit with soldiers of you know three different four different generations and they will all find common experiences . That's what's so cool about the artwork is that you know you have a you have somebody who served in , you know , World War Two Vietnam G watt , you know and they'll all look at a work of art and they'll find a common experience there . It's timeless . It is the I think the slice of life , the soldier experience Looking at that artwork , if it was from the 18th century or you know , up recently um to the modern wars that we've been in um you're seeing soldiers experience the same things and yeah , yeah . You know the chow lines , the cleaning of the weapons . Um you know the weapons may have changed and stuff but still soldiering on , soldiering , soldiering on soldiering . And that's one thing that we wanted to do in that exhibit is get that timelessness of it across . And as you mentioned earlier , the thing that fascinated me , I think the most that I should say that I learned from that experience is the artwork isn't just the paintings , it's like you're saying the door of the humvee . Um and uh what is it , the canvas bags , people would paint on their canvas bags or draws . So yeah and you know , it's it's doodling but it's also , you know , it's also a window into the experience of the soldiers in the time in which they served soldiers who didn't set out to be an artist um you know if they've got something like that , they anyone who is if you have something that you have doodled , we might be interested . Absolutely . Um Now you do more than just collect the art here . Right ? So you have this vast art collection but it's got to be maintained or what's what's the term curated or Yeah , curating curating is you know generally what you do when you're putting together an exhibit . Um you know , we research , we , you know , we write on it . But you know , preserving is , you know , I think the word that you're looking for here and you know , that is always a balancing act . You know , as museum professionals , we want to get that artwork out there . We want people to see it . We want people to learn from it . But we're also thinking about its long term preservation . And when I say that , I'm not talking about 10 years from now , I'm talking about is this object That is made of things that naturally Degrade . Is this object going to be around 50 years from now , 200 years from now , 400 years from now . And you know , everything that we do is made with those . Those are decisions are made with that in mind . Um So our facility is kept at a um uh particular temperature , particular humidity . We have very very high quality air filtration in this building and in most of our museum buildings in order to maintain the best environment possible for the artifacts . Oh it's great . Yeah . So a lot of time and effort is has been paid to maintaining or preserving is Yes , absolutely . And getting things ready to go on exhibit as well . You know , artwork , you know , unless you unless you work in a museum , you probably think , well it's an artwork you just hanging on the wall . No , we need to because we're thinking about preserving it until they're , you know , until the end of time . Um you know , we need to think about the light levels . We need to think about , you know , what is gravity going to do to this painting if we hang it for a certain length of time and gravity is bad . Um And and for a lot of the reasons that we've already stated through this , it's the army's heritage . It is the Army's story . And and that's why I think it's so important . Yeah . And we want to make sure that it's around for future generations and um as well as enjoyed by and you know , here to teach current generations . You've already talked about some a few significant pieces , but what are other significant pieces of art that that that you maintain . Um well that life collection of artwork is fantastic . Um You know , I mentioned the World War Two . Yes . I mentioned tom Lee's Pelloux Pelloux Landing series . You know , that includes a very well known work called marines call it that 2000 yard stare . Sorry , Marine Corps . We do have it . Um that is one of the , one of the works that everybody wants to see . Um You know we have uh for norman Rockwell Originals in the collection for the army . Yes . Yes so one of them is um you know the famous machine gunner piece ? Um It's it's titled Let's Give Them Enough and on time . Um So that's one that we'll put that one up on the on the social media Fridays . Um Yeah the yank cartoons . Um And you know even even the works by the soldier artists you know these are you know these are you know they're significant works because they mean something to soldiers and because soldiers can look at them and as I was saying a few minutes ago because soldiers of various generations all relate to that same to that same experience . And how can people see the army aren't you mentioned that there's there's museums but there's other ways . Yeah . Yeah . The best way to go see works in person is to visit one of the army museums . Most of them have most of them have you know at least one or two artworks up at any given time . The National Museum of the U . S . Army just took down the art of soldiering exhibit . But there will be a smaller version of it reopening when they reopened that gallery um Later on this summer I think it's september that it's reopening . Um So there will still be artwork up there . In addition to that . We have artwork up on the CMH website we have army art Fridays that we have on our social media , facebook instagram , twitter and um also in the army history magazine , you know , a couple of times a year we have an Army art article . So , um so people can explore the website at history dot army dot mil and um yeah , you know , I put together the social media post for army art friday . That's one of the places that we go , in addition to uh to the art that you and your team send me as well . So there's a lot of places people go to find the army . We also have a couple hard copy publications as well . Um you know , there are and they're available on our website as well . There there's one uh One on Army Art Vietnam to the present day , that's titled in the line of duty . There's a couple that were published in the 1990s , those are titled um uh I can't remember . So before we get to who trivia , is there anything else that we didn't bring up that you think is important for people to know about the art program ? No , I don't think so , but I'm happy to answer any , any follow up questions that you get on on the podcast . Alright , well we'll do so thanks so much , but before we close it's time for my favorite segment called trivia . Alright , so this is a piece of significant army trivia ? Something that we're hoping will impress or wow the audience . So what piece of trivia can you share about the Army art program ? All right , so we were just talking about significant pieces of art that the army maintains , but I was saving this for trivia . Okay . Um now did you know that walt Disney designed both nose art and insignia during World War two ? So the walt Disney walt Disney . Yeah . So first of all , nose art , what do you mean by that nose art for airplanes , airplanes in front of the airplanes in front of the airplanes . So , okay , now most of those , most of those are maintained by Disney and protected under copyright , but we do have two pieces in our collection . You know , works on paper that were walt Disney's designs . So , and those are currently our Transportation Museum and Aviation Museum . They , you know , because their works on paper , they're not constantly on display , but they do um they do sometimes rotate on to display . Well , that's fascinating because yeah , I mean , Disney , the Disney Studios , the artists , the filmmakers , they did a lot for the war effort . So that's really cool . Well , great . I didn't know that they were involved in the art program too . So that's fascinating . Well , thank you so much for that . Who would trivia and thanks so much for your discussion and insights today about the army art program . Thank you for having me , my pleasure . And if anyone wants to learn more about the army art program or learn more about army history in general than I encourage you to explore our website as at history dot army dot mil . And from the website you can also find army museums near you . If you want to go and visit some of these to see the art , um just click on the museum tab at the top of the website . You can explore that and and our army art pages as well . And if you want to experience army history every day as we were talking about , you can visit our social media sites on facebook twitter and instagram . So please join us every week on this podcast for more in depth discussions as we cover topics from all eras of U . S . Army history examining battles , soldier experiences , equipment , weapons and tactics . Thanks for joining us today on the United States army history and heritage podcast for the center of military history , I'm lee Reynolds and until next time we're history . The views expressed in this podcast reflect those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views policies or opinions of the US Army or Department of Defense . For more information about the army's proud history and heritage , go to history dot army dot mil