Art: Artists in Uniform

“You may be guided by Blake’s mysticism, by Goya’s cynicism and savagery, by Delacroix’s romanticism, by Daumier’s humanity and tenderness; or better still follow your own inevitable star.”

Thus last March Painter George Diddle addressed U.S. painters picked by the War Department to record the war. The painters will now have to search for their own stars: Congress has refused to put up the project’s funds (a requested $125,000 out of the $71,500,000,000 of the 1943-44 Army appropriation bill).

Left in mid-brushstroke as of Aug. 31, unless private funds come to their rescue, will be 42 uniformed artists (19 civilian employes, 23 from the Army). Among the painters involved are: George Biddle himself (now in Algeria), Californian Millard Sheets, Texan Howard Cook, Chicagoan Aaron Bohrod, New Yorkers Henry Varnum Poor, Reginald Marsh, Alexander Brook.

Possibility: that leading U.S. magazines may take over the project on a pooling basis (LIFE has already sent nine independent artists on a similar mission—TIME, July 5).