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If one picture can paint a thousand words, there are more than one hundred thousand words behind the portraits in the exhibit, "Faces of the Fallen." The faces are those of the 1,328 servicemembers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan between October 10, 2001, and November 11, 2004. In solemn, orderly, military formation, the portraits wrap around the inside wall of the Women in Military Service to America (VVIMSA) Memorial at the gateway to Arlington National Cemetery.
When our eyes nicer theirs, we can't help but wonder what their stones are, what their lives had been, and, above all, what their lives could have been had they not been cut short. This is the emotional punch of the exhibit, the sum of which is far more powerful than its individual parts.
The project was conceived by Washington, D.C., portrait artistAnnette Polan. She had seen a spread in the Washington Post, "Faces of the Fallen"-row upon row of photographs ol men and women who had died in the two conflicts. It reminded her of a portrait gallery. She also remembered the comfort that the portraits of her parents had given her after their deaths, and she wanted to offer this type of solace to the loved ones of the fallen. Above all, Ms. Polan real ized that "a portrait is really a way of reaching out to the future, to say this person was here. He mattered. Someone cared about him."
Reaching out to colleagues am) her current anil former students at the Corcoran (College of Art + Design, Ms. Polan had little trouble recruiting artists to participate. She had few parameters: artists could use any medium. Inn the canvas had to measure 6 by 8 inches. The artists worked from previously published photographs. None had met the persons they depicted, with one exception. John...