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An Artist Goes to War: Leon Granacki in the South Pacific WWII (Adults)

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Victoria Granacki paints a portrait of her father, Leon, through his maps, watercolors, journal illustrations, photos, and letters home during WWII.

Like so many others who served in World War II, Leon Granacki was an ordinary guy from a working-class immigrant family drafted into the U.S. Army and thrust into the horrors of war in the South Pacific. But through sheer luck and pluck, he leveraged his art talents to survive and thrive, catapulting himself from private infantryman to master sergeant and mapmaker for General MacArthur in the Americal Division’s Intelligence section. In this richly illustrated book, Leon’s story unfolds through original hand-drawn pen and ink maps, jungle watercolors, journal illustrations, scrapbook photos, and heartfelt letters home to “Dear Gang” — his extended Polish American family crowded together in a Chicago apartment building.

Among the collection of 200 letters that the book quotes from are excerpts of 18 letters written in Polish—personal letters to his beloved parents that reveal tenderness and longing. He reassures them he'll be safe, even as war rages around him. He yearns for family, shared holidays back home, fishing, and a woman to love. These letters remind us of the human cost of war through a soldier’s heartache.

Victoria states, “My father left an incredible written and visual collection of his wartime experiences that his family lovingly saved for him until he returned safely home. As his daughter and an art collector, architectural historian, and archivist myself, I felt responsible to preserve the collection and present some of its highlights to a wider audience.”

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