Steve Mumford (b. 1960)

Steve Mumford (b. 1960)
(i) Spc. Jose Fuentes Watching Three Kings While Spc.. Amanda Lusk Sleeps, Samarra, Oct. 8 (The 64th MP Company had several women, which gave the small CMOC base a pleasant college dorm-like feeling, when it wasn't under attack.)
(ii) An open air market in Baghdad, Feb. 2
(i) signed and dated 'Steve Mumford 03' (on a label affixed to the backing board)
(i), (ii): ink and watercolour on paper
(i), (ii): 11 x 14in. (27.9 x 35.6cm.)
(i) Executed in 2003
(ii) Executed in 2004
Provenance:
(i), (ii): Postmasters Gallery, New York.
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2004.

Exhibited:
(i) New York, Postmasters Gallery, Steve Mumford in Iraq: Drawing from Life, 2003.

Specialist Notes:

‘I didn’t set out to “cover” the story in a journalist’s sense; nor was I interested in being objective. I was interested in the war as a narrative. I wanted to gather enough first-hand experience to be able to make art about it, without relying on news stories, or perceived wisdom about the war’ (S. Mumford, quoted in ‘Combat art’, [accessed 7th September 2015] ).

American artist Steve Mumford entered Iraq on April 9, 2003, the day the statue of Saddam Hussein was toppled in Baghdad. Although no military unit agreed to take him in, Mumford bought a ticket to Kuwait and crossed the border with two French reporters. Over four separate trips, Mumford spent the next eleven months documenting the war zone. Sketching whenever he could, Mumford would use photography to quickly capture more dangerous scenes, and draw them at a later stage. Working within the legacy of documentary war art, Mumford’s choice of the more traditional medium of watercolour instead of photography, further engenders his work with an unmediated way of presenting and contemplating the emotional toll of war.

Indeed Mumford’s ‘Baghdad Journal’ tells the story of war from a human side. His ink drawings, watercolours and writings, depict the daily life of U.S. soldiers and the people of Iraq, without the confrontation of combat imagery.An open air market in Baghdad, Feb 2 shows the chaos and daily routine of a city taken by war. Spc. Jose Fuentes Watching Three Kings While Spc. Amanda Lusk Sleeps, Samarra, Oct. 8 portrays a U.S. soldier in a moment of privacy, completely relaxed and unarmed. The irony of Spc. Jose Fuentes spending his moments of diversion watching Three Kings, a film situated at the end of the Persian Gulf War, is a wry note on the idea that war has become a source of entertainment, which is mirrored in Mumford’s practice.

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