World War II...

A Combat Artist's View

Harry Reeks (1920 - 1982)  

The New Orleans native was an official Marine Corps combat artist who captured live combat and battlefield images of Guadacanal, Bougainville, and Iwo Jima.  He landed on Iwo Jima with the invasion force and spent thirty days on the island sketching the campaign.  Some of his war images were featured in Collier's magazine.  Educated at the Reineke Academy of Art, Reeks spent his life as an artist and sculptor in San Francisco, New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

A large part of this historic work, which was returned to Reeks after the war, now resides at the  Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection at Brown University.  There these drawings and paintings can  be viewed and appreciated by those interested in both history and art.  Most recently a small portion  of the original works were on on display at the Ohr - O'Keefe Museum of Art in Biloxi, MS.  It is hoped  that in the near future other originals will be available for viewing at related museums such as the  D-Day Museum in New Orleans, LA.

The family of Harry Reeks has made available a limited number of estate authorized prints of some of the more vivid images that he captured on the battlefront.

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