A YEAR IN THE TROPICS POSTER ART AT DANON GALLERY IN EVANSTON, ILLINOIS

A Year in the Tropics Poster Art, 13.5 x 9 inch ink drawing by George C. Clark

The first exhibitions of my Vietnam War art were at the Evanston Art Center Co-op Gallery and the State of Illinois Building in downtown Chicago (since renamed the Thompson Center).  For both venues I had to produce my own announcement cards and posters.  Because color printing was prohibitively expensive in those days, I created this poster art for black-and-white reproduction.  I wanted it really dramatic, suggesting war in Asia, combat, and showing Air Force planes in action (which would make the image suitable for inclusion in the United States Air Force Art Collection), rather than illustrating a particular incident from my own Vietnam experience.  I did see Phantoms rocketing VC targets, but not from as close up as this drawing suggests, and I was in combat, but at an isolated fire support base near the Cambodian border rather than among any of the ancient Khmer ruins in the area.

I had made this drawing on illustration board that isn't ideal for watercolor, so I made a same-size silkscreen print of of it on heavy archival watercolor board and hand-colored that version with watercolor and gouache.  That color painting, titled Phantoms in Close Support, is the one that was in my A Year in the Tropics exhibitions and is now in the U.S. Air Force Art Collection.  You can see it posted elsewhere on this blog.

So I still have this original ink drawing, and it can currently be seen at Danon Gallery, 1810 Central Street in Evanston, Illinois, where I am having an exhibition with Mark McMahon and John Downs, two other artists who also have work in the U.S.A.F. Art Collection.  We are all showing landscapes on the gallery walls, but Bob Danon asked me to bring in a few of my pieces from A Year in the Tropics unframed, and they are displayed on a table at the back of the gallery's front room.  The show will be up until about November 10, 2016.  Call (847) 899-7758 for gallery hours.