Americal Division Soldier Silk Painting
My local antique shop has a lot of neat 1930’s-1950’s memorabilia, including some WWII stuff. I’d been eyeing this unique silk painting for about a month but I finally broke down and bought it yesterday (it was only $20 so it wasn’t a huge purchase or anything). It’s really well-done, there’s something very striking about it. The other items in the booth were all very well-documented, but this painting is somewhat mysterious. It has no signatures or other markings that I can see, even on the back/inside the frame. It was tagged simply as ‘WWII Soldier Silk Painting’ in the antique store.
This morning, however, I noticed that there was a dark spot on his shoulder, and carefully lifted the painting up out of the frame slightly to get a look at it. It was part of a division patch. After a bit more research, I matched it to the Americal (23rd Infantry) Division. It looks like the silk may have possibly been cut to fit inside a frame, since the edges are a bit ragged, which is a real shame.
I actually found a similar silk portrait on an auction site. It’s of a sailor, and looks like it was done by a Japanese artist in occupied Japan, dated 1950. It was marked Yokosuka. It can be seen here, if you’re interested. That makes me wonder if this portrait was done by another artist in a similar fashion, since the Americal Division also took part in the occupation of Japan.
I’m trying to find out who the soldier is, but so far I’ve had little luck matching up his facial features with any of the photos I’ve found. I think I can safely rule out any Americal soldiers who died prior to the occupation of Japan, which is when this portrait was most likely painted. That narrows down the field a bit, but there’s still so much more research to be done.
Just wanted to share! Any advice and information that would help me identify the artist/soldier would be most appreciated.
