Kerr Eby

A combat artist who served in both World Wars, Kerr Eby documented his experience through the myriad sketches he made of fellow soldiers and army life. Born in Tokyo to Christian Missionary Parents, Eby moved to the United States at the age of eighteen. Encouraged to pursue the arts as a child, Eby came to New York to study at the Pratt Institute and Art Students League. With the outbreak of World War I, Eby enrolled in the Army Corps of Engineers and served in France where he produced many fine drawing of soldiers. His skills as a draftsman made him an excellent combat artist in World War II, where he camouflaged tanks. Upon his return, many of his drawings were turned into prints. In honor of his artistic wartime achievements, Yale University Press published a book of his prints and drawing from World War I in 1936.

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Kerr Eby (1890–1946) was a Canadian illustrator best known for his renderings of soldiers in combat in the First and Second World Wars. He is held in a similar regard to Harvey Dunn and the other famous illustrators dispatched by the government to cover the First World War.

Born in Tokyo, Japan to Canadian Methodist missionary parents in 1890, Kerr received formal art training at Pratt Institute and the Art Students League of New York. Enlisting in the Army in 1917, Eby served in an ambulance crew and later as a camoufleur. Although unable to acquire an artist's commission to cover the war, Eby created many memorable and haunting images of soldiers both in combat and living their daily lives on the front.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Eby continued to occasionally generate pieces related to his experience, and worked many of his early sketches into completed lithographs. These images were eventually collected and distributed in the book WAR, which remains in the collection of many libraries today. Notable images in this collection include a haunting drawing of marines retreating across the countryside beneath a menacing black cloud.

As the United States returned to war in 1941, Eby attempted to reenlist but was denied because of his age. He found service instead in the combat artists program created by Abbott Laboratories to cover the war. Eby operated primarily in the Pacific during World War II, where he landed with the Marines on Tarawa and Guadalcanal. He created many of his strongest works, and put his life on the line to capture the experiences he shared with those soldiers.

Eby contracted a tropical disease while covering the war in Bougainville, and would die at his home in Norwalk, Connecticut in 1946. He left behind a great body of completed work and much that was still in progress. These drawings, prints and paintings serve as both historical record and primary documentation of the American experience of war in the 20th century.