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(U.S.E.D.,N.Y.D.) FORM No.11

War Department   
United States Engineer Office 
New York District 
Room 601, 120 Wall Street 
New York, N.Y.

Refer to File No.                        

March 30, 1943.

Mr. Reginald Marsh, 
1 Union Square 
New York. N.Y. 

Dear Mr. Marsh: 

You have been recommended by the War Department Art Advisory Committee as one of a small group of outstanding American artists to go to an active war theater, and there to obtain a graphic record of the war. The theaters of war to which you will eventually be assigned will include

1. The Caribbean and South America 
2. Southwest Africa (Dakar and Accra) 
3. England and Iceland 
4. Northeast Africa and the Near East 
5. India, Burma and China

The specific front to which you will be assigned will depend as much as possible on your own choice. 

In making their selections, the Committee generally recognized the importance of graphic reportage. But it was looking for something more. As Henry Poor, one of our Committee, phrased it:

"The United States must take the lead and find some way of getting from our finest artists and writers the things they alone can give -- a deeply, passionately felt, but profoundly reflective interpretation of the spirit and essence of war."

John Steinbeck, another of our Committee, wrote: 

"A total war would require the use not only of all the material resources of the nation but also the spiritual and psychological participation of the whole people, and the only psychic communication we have is through the arts."

In this war there will be a greater amount than ever before of written, photographic, and pictorial data. Our Committee expects you always to be more than a news gatherer. The importance of what you have to say for the historian of the future will be the impact of the war on you, as an artist, a human being. 


[[stamp]] FOR VICTORY 
BUY UNITED STATES WAR BONDS AND STAMPS [[/stamp]]

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