by the Italian American Museum

You are cordially invited to attend the opening reception for "Drawings of D-Day: An Artist's Journey Through War" an exhibition featuring the drawings of WWII veteran and artist Ugo Giannini at the Italian American Museum on Friday, October 14 at 6:30 PM.

About the Exhibit: Drawing D-Day offers an extraordinary, one-of-a-kind testimony in words and images by a soldier and artist of the U.S. Army's 29th Infantry Division, of one of the most famous military operations of World War II. On June 6, 1944, Ugo Giannini landed on Omaha Beach at H+70 minutes as one of a platoon of military police assigned to the 29th Division. Ugo's team was to control the incoming traffic. There were thirty-seven men in his platoon; they were decimated in the first ten minutes. Six men got to the beach. Someone told Ugo that he was needed on the bluff above. He climbed the Vierville Draw, jumped into a crater made by naval bombardment, and spent that day and part of the next day as an eyewitness to the greatest invasion ever conceived by the military.

Remarkably, he began to draw. These are the only known drawings made that historic day, as well as the next. Drawn in pencil and pen, in a gritty, realistic style, the images show heavily burdened infantrymen trying to stay afloat in the seawater, crawling on the beach or dead among the ruins of a bombed out village. Interwoven with letters home written by a young man to his family and his girlfriend, the words and images portray the horror of war in a deep and personal way. The abstract paintings in this exhibition provide a powerful statement, composed forty years after the initial experience; a testimony to the enduring power of war on the psyche on one artist-soldier, Ugo Giannini. - Maxine Giannini

For reservations please call the Museum at 212.965.9000, send an email to [email protected] or fax 347.810.1028. Refreshments will be served.