Art Show Puts Faces to Names of the Fallen

Shirley Schmunk and Bonnie Allen gazed at the five rows of soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, searching for those who, like Schmunk’s son, Jeremiah, had served in the Washington state Army National Guard.

When they found those soldiers, the women placed sprigs of baby’s breath next to their faces.

They also placed one, along with a rose, next to Jeremiah’s face -- one of 1,327 portraits in an exhibition, “Faces of the Fallen,” honoring those who died in the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts.

Sharing the flowers with his fellow guardsmen is what Jeremiah would have wanted, his mother said, adding, “He felt for everybody.”

Highlighting the characters of the individuals who died in wartime is what artist Annette Polan was trying to achieve with the exhibition, which opened to the public March 23.

“Part of it was giving identity to these numbers and names we pick up in the newspaper every day,” said Polan, who teaches painting at the Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington and began working on the project in January 2004.

Inspired by the Washington Post’s “Faces of the Fallen,” a periodic feature of photographs of those killed in the war, she envisioned an exhibition of portraits and recruited more than 200 professional artists, all of whom were volunteers.

Some of the photos used in creating the portraits were found on websites, others were provided by the families. Polan did nine portraits, some of which she said she was “almost afraid to paint” because of how closely she identified with those left behind.

Jeremiah Schmunk’s mother is among those who think the artists succeeded in capturing their subjects’ characters.

“When I look at the pictures, I notice that they all felt the spirit of each person as they were doing it,” Schmunk said during her visit to the exhibition, two days after it opened. “Each one has its own personality, as each of the soldiers did.”

Her son’s portrait, painted by Bethesda, Md., artist Raye Leith, is aswirl with tan and green, plus a touch of red, white and blue. Jeremiah’s dark-brown eyes shine alongside a broad smile -- perfectly capturing his spirit, his mother said.

“He had a hard time not smiling,” she said. “Some of the guys he served with told me they could always count on Jeremiah to bring their spirits up.”

Jeremiah, who held the rank of specialist in the Army National Guard, was killed in an ambush near Baghdad on July 8 -- a few weeks before he was scheduled to come home on leave to Richland, Wash., for his 21st birthday, his mother said.

“I wanted to capture something that photographs don’t capture and give an essence only a battery of photographs can give,” Leith said of the 12 portraits she painted. “I had feelings about all these guys, and I just really let them out.”

The exhibition, in the Military Women in Service to America Memorial, at the gateway to Arlington National Cemetery, has also achieved its goal of bringing people together.

On the day she visited, Schmunk noticed a woman pointing to a portrait Schmunk had put a flower on and immediately went over to talk to her. The strangers hugged for more than a minute, wept as they spoke about their children who both served in the 161st Infantry Regiment, and exchanged contact information before they parted.

That woman was Darcy Lewis, whose son, Spc. Donald R. McCune, 20, died in Germany on Aug. 5 from the injuries he sustained when his jeep drove over a hidden bomb in Balad, Iraq. He had volunteered to go to war, transferring from his Michigan unit to the Washington one, which was about to be deployed.

McCune’s portrait, created by Gibby Waitzkin of Washington, D.C., incorporates brown paper and pressed flowers framing his face.

“He loved hunting and fishing. He was really outdoorsy, and to have all of that there shows it,” Lewis said. “It does give you an idea of who he was. I refuse to let him be a number.”

Even those visitors with no family connections to those honored were moved. “You hear the statistics, but now you see the faces,” said Marian Strange, who was visiting from Connecticut.

“Like the Vietnam Memorial where you can touch the names, it creates more depth,” she said, choking back tears. “They become real people.”

Each canvas, measuring 6 inches by 8 inches, hangs on a steel rod and has a nameplate giving the service member’s name, branch of service and date of death.

The portraits are rendered in varied styles -- some starkly realistic, others highly stylized. Some use paint or pencil, others incorporate wood or plaster. Some depict a soldier in full military regalia, down to his last service ribbon; others put their subjects in more casual attire, or focus on their features.

The privately funded exhibit runs through Nov. 11, Veterans Day. After that, if Polan is able to raise the money, she hopes that it will tour the nation. When it closes, the artists have agreed to donate the portraits to their subjects’ families.

The exhibit includes only those military personnel killed between Oct. 10, 2001, just after the war in Afghanistan began, and Nov. 11, 2004 -- primarily due to the availability of the artists and space limitations at the display site.

Because some photos were not immediately available, some of those killed are represented only by a silhouette. These will be replaced with portraits when they are completed.

Eventually, Polan said, she wants to create portraits for those who died after Nov. 11, 2004, but she first needs some time to rest emotionally and complete the current exhibit.

“Ideally, there would be one for everyone who dies in this war,” she said. “But before I make promises, I want to get this part of the project finished.”

Polan said that though she did not support the Iraq war, the exhibition was not meant to be either pro or antiwar. “The message with this is that no matter what your feelings are about the war, this project is about courage and love and honor and values and sacrifice,” she said.