The Ghost Army
from
The National WW ll Museum
now in Albany, New York
This week we dash off to the Big Apple, and we have good reasons - we want to see our family in their new home called SOMA ( which stands for South Manhattan! ). On our long trip to downtown, we made two stops, both were wonderful and full of surprises!
In Albany, New York, we stopped into the New York State Museum which is holding a historical exhibition that tells a story of The Ghost Army of World War ll. The Ghost Army was a secret battalion which included many artists who created deceptions on the battlefields of Europe, and helped save many lives to win the war. In the spring of 2024, The Ghost Army was given an award for their service to our country: the troops received the Congressional Gold Medal in Washington, D.C.!
Graphic recognition for The Ghost Army of WWll
Artwork by Arthur Singer, a member of The Ghost Army
Originally, the Ghost Army was enlisted to provide camouflage but their assignment grew into a whole theatre, including placing fake tanks and howitzers in fields and putting on a real show including broadcasts and sounds of battle to distract the enemy.
At the New York State Museum in Albany, the Ghost Army show extends thru December 27, 2026. We learned a lot about this piece of history. My father, Arthur Singer was a member of The Ghost Army, and in this exhibition there are some of his watercolors and drawings, including some made along the beaches of Normandy. How he had the presence of mind ( and body! ) during the war to create these scenes happening right before him, and getting it down on paper is beyond me!
Inflatable tanks were made as props in this real world war
Most of the artwork that is presented in this show comes from a collection maintained by The World War ll Museum headquartered in New Orleans. The Singer family donated artworks for this special collection and this show has been traveling around the country. There were several well known artists in this battalion who went on to world fame including Ellsworth Kelly and the fashion designer Bill Blass. In this present exhibition there are some video interviews with some of the surviving soldiers, and that is worth your time to go and see the show.
While we were in Albany, we took a look at a major group of paintings and sculptures that visitors can see up close on the grand concourse. The amazing thing is that this is all presented in an underground hall that looks like it is a half mile long! As the accompanying booklet proclaims, "this was conceived in the early 1960s by then Governor Nelson Rockefeller, who believed in the transformative power of art".
My wife, Anna, in the Grand Concourse
The artists who received commissions to create these large works made the whole experience of walking down this well lit hallway an amazing experience. Most of these artists were at their peak in the 1960s and 1970s, so we are talking about grand abstraction, not representational art. You can find many big names on view in this space.
An assemblage by Lee Bontecou
Sculpture and paintings on view down a long hallway.
The works are all large like this complex sculpture!
Al Loving is an African American artist on view here with this geometric painting
This was our first stop along the route to NYC. In part two of this story ( soon to follow ) we stop in to see the Entheon, which is part of the COSM enterprise that is dedicated to Alex and Allyson Grey, some old friends of ours who create a wide range of art from performance to transcendental artworks! So stay tuned!....
