Tom Lea (American, 1907-2001) West Coast of Greenland, 1947 Gouache and watercolor on paper 19-1/2 x 22-1/2 inches (48.3 x 57.1 cm) (sheet) Signed, titled, and inscribed lower left: Tom Lea WEST COAST OF GREENLAND from a sketch made on a flight north of BW-1 (Narsarssuak) on 24 August 1943 Property from The Tom Lea Institute, El Paso, Texas PROVENANCE: The artist; MBank, El Paso, Texas, acquired from the above, by 1989; Wells Fargo Bank, acquired from the above, 2000; Gift to the present owner from the above. LITERATURE: K.G. Hjerter, The Art of Tom Lea, College Station, Texas, 1989, p. 134, illustrated. Tom Lea's artistic practice was fundamentally shaped by his experiences during the war. Present aboard a destroyer on North Atlantic patrol at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Lea would go on to travel more than one hundred thousand miles over the course of the war, accompanying U.S. forces across England, North Africa, Italy, and into the Middle East, India, and China. Of approximately two hundred works produced by LIFE magaize's nine war time artists that were later presented to the U.S. government for reproduction, the largest number were executed by Lea, underscoring both his productivity and the importance of his contribution. The present work records Lea's encounter with the stark and remote landscape of Greenland. The artist's inscription along the lower margin notes that the composition was developed from sketches made aboard a departing flight in 1943. Translated from fleeting observation into a carefully structured image, the scene captures the vast, elemental character of the Arctic terrain. The composition unfolds from an elevated vantage, the rugged shoreline stretching below in sweeping arcs, while jagged rock formations rise sharply from glacial waters, their surfaces carved and faceted. "I became, for deeply felt reasons, an eye-witness reporter, in drawings and paintings, of men and their machines waging a war worldwide . . . I reported in pictures what I saw with my own two eyes, wide open. ​ Doing it that way I traveled more than a hundred thousand miles outside the United States, north and south of the Equator, east and west of the International Date Line, in lights and shadows as shaky as the Aurora weaving mysteries over the empty Ice Cap of Greenland, or a shine of parachute flare bringing night-time flash of gunfire from black jungle on a coral island." - Tom Lea, undated letter, www.tomlea.com HID12401132022 © 2026 Heritage Auctions | All Rights Reserved www.HA.com/TexasAuctioneerLicenseNotice

The artist; MBank, El Paso, Texas, acquired from the above, by 1989; Wells Fargo Bank, acquired from the above, 2000; Gift to the present owner.

Condition report available upon request.
Framed Dimensions 33.5 X 36 Inches