On this Memorial Day, we recognize one of John Kelly’s “failed” works, a piece which never saw its intended usage.
From a critique by Madge Tennent of an exhibit at the Honolulu Academy of Art of John Kelly's work, published in the Honolulu Star Bulletin on October 11, 1942:
“The slumped figure of the tired soldier is a tribute to our Navy and has a Picasso-like certainty of fluid line.”
In the 1940s, John was commissioned by the Navy to produce a poster to encourage Hawaiian men to join the war effort. He did several renditions of the Hawaiian soldier. The Navy rejected his earlier version, depicted here, that clearly revealed the ravages of war.