MARINE CORPS ARTIST

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 118, 14 February 1944, Page 3

MARINE CORPS ARTIST

Hundred Oil Paintings Of Pacific War

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, February 13. One hundred large canvasses of the war in the Pacific are being painted bv an official artist of the United States Marine Corps, Captain Carl Shreve, who is at present in Auckland. The' paintings are for the Marine Corps war record, and to get the material for them Captain Shreve has spent three months in the South and South-west Pacific areas In the South-west Pacific area Captain Shreve went from Port Moresby to the Woodlu.-k Islands and over the Owen Stanly Range.'to what was . then the most forward area of the lighting in the Finschafen district. In the South Pacific area he travelled, always by air, from New Caledonia to all the islands in Allied hands up to and including Bougainville. . ... Captain Shreve is an American artist who in civilian life did much brochure and poster work for large commercial firms, specially for shipping } iu . fis en .' gaged in the tourist trade. Ibis work brought him five times lo New Zealand, where his work is well-known to those who have, for instance, seen the beautifully illustrated booklets published by a Dutch shipping company to attract visitors to the Netherlands East Indies. Inc task he has now was initiated by the Marine Corps command to give America a permanent record in oils of the campaigns in the Pacific in which Manne Corps formations have been engaged, lo carry it out Captain Shreve has followed his usual time-saving technique of photographing a host of possible subjects and then returning to a convenient base to do his paintings, building up each one from several of the photographs enlarged, or “blown up” as be culls it, to give the necessary detail. In three months Captain Shreve took 2000 of these pictures of almost every conceivable human and natural subject in the islands he has visited. . ~

Captain Shreve much prefers this way of fulfilling his duty. Had he done field sketches instead of taking photographs, he says, it would have taken him three years instead of three months to gather the material he has accumulated now. He has an improvised studio fitted up in the headquarters of the United States naval operating base al: Auckland, and as he finishes his paintings he has them shipped back to Washington, from where, when enough are gathered, they will be sent on a gallery tour of American cities and towns, and some will probably find their way into magazine reproduction to show the people how and where their marines Igivo been fighting.