Painting War

Scottish artist George Plante did not enter World War II as an artist but as a volunteer radio operator in the British merchant fleet. There he spent more than two years engaged in the long-running and fierce Battle of the Atlantic, splitting his time between Britain and the United States. But while dodging U-boats and battling the elements, he also painted. Every time his tanker docked in New York he pursued contacts in the worlds of art and advertising. Even in the midst of a devastating conflict, he never lost sight of his devotion to his craft. Very quickly, he caught the attention of agents of the British Ministry of Information (MOI) and of the War Artists Advisory Committee (WAAC). They recruited him to use his paintings of the war at sea for what was seen as a vital effort to rally Americans for the war effort in Britain. In March 1943 Plante's nautical days ended abruptly after his tanker was torpedoed and sank. Surviving and returning to Britain, he was reassigned to work closely with the Americans in Egypt and Italy, this time to use his art as overt propaganda, both to demonize the Nazi and Fascist enemy and to arouse opposition to them among occupied peoples under their control. Plante's unusual wartime career spanned three continents, moving from the North Atlantic to North Africa and the Mediterranean. Both at sea and on land, Plante was far from the policy-making, strategic, and even operational levels of the war. Rather, the decisions he was called upon to make dealt with color and style and layout. Seeing the war through George Plante's vivid and articulate letters and memoirs, and through his art, adds a granular, ground-level view that expands and enriches the historical record.