Navy Medical Center Art of the Abbot Collection

Image by Carlos Andreson

Image by David Stone Martin

Image by Julien Levi

By Mark Kaufman

I happily stumbled upon this stirring collection at the Naval History and Heritage Command web site today. In 1943 Abbott Laboratories sent civilian artists to document Naval Medicine in World War II. These war correspondents were sent to Naval Medical facilities throughout America and abroad. The artists who spent weeks living with medical officers and hospital corpsmen included David Stone Martin, Irwin Hoffman, Kerr Erby, Carlos Andreson, Joseph Hirsch and Julien Levi. The captions that accompany the images, with minor edits were originally written by the artists themselves. A wonderful array of styles and artistic methods by the artists involved, document both the harrowing and the mundane. It’s a fascinating slice of history, do check this out.