Society of Illustrators

Documenting military operations in the United States through art can be traced back to our battle for independence. John Trumbull, a member of General Washington's staff was one of our first military painters. Today, even with the use of the camera, there is a need for the talents of the artist to document history.

A few years after it's founding as an independent service in 1947, the US Air Force and the Society of Illustrators conceived an art program to organize the nation's most prominent illustrators for missions around the world. Now, with the participation of other organizations, there are over 10,000 works in the collection. Reproductions appear in publications and various media and the original art is displayed in musuems, the Pentagon, Air Force bases and public exhibitions around the world.