The gripping story of the artists who were "embedded" with American troops during WWI to witness, explore and depict in their art the trials and triumphs of the soldiers.

"Riveting . . . Krass weaves a fascinating story of the first official attempt by the Army to capture the essence of war through the eyes and pencils of eight top American artists who were sent to the Western Front in France. A marvelous eyewitness story of the 'Big War.'"
—Col. H. A. Chenoweth, USMCR Ret., Korean War veteran, Vietnam and Gulf War combat artist, and author of Art of War A Searing Account of World War I as Seen by the Artist

Eighty-five years before there were embedded journalists with American armed forces in Iraq, eight brave artist-soldiers risked their lives in the trenches and battlefields to bring the reality of World War I back home.

In Portrait of War, Peter Krass shares the heroic adventures of these men as they witnessed, explored, and depicted the trials and triumphs of the American soldier and the tragedy of war. Written with the intensity of a novel, this compelling narrative follows the artists as they marched shoulder to shoulder with the doughboys, sketching while under fire and doing their best to stay alive. Studded with examples of their remarkable work and excerpts from the artists' journals, this thrilling account places us at the front lines as surely as our television cameras do today.