Four pencil on paper World War 2 sketches, 1940’s.

A) “North Atlantic - 1943”, signed lower left, “study for life boat” and title in pencil below drawing. 8” x 12” paper, image size 5” x 7 1/2, with rips and loss to paper edge. Incomplete sketch on the reverse of paper, with “Pencil / #402 Life Boat- North Atlantic / 5 1/8” x 7 3/8” 1943” along one edge.

B) “The Pit”, signed lower right and titled below, paper numbered 611, lower right corner. 8 1/2” x 7 1/2” paper, image size 3” x 4 1/4”; brittle condition with top right corner of paper missing. A horrifying little scene of soldiers shooting surrendering men, and what appears to be a mass grave.

C) “Lest We Forget”, two drawings: 1) small sketch and 2) design for dry point. 1) Signed and dated 1944, lower left, titled below with “Design for Dry Point” below title, paper numbered 616, brittle paper with rough edges, 8 1/2” x 9”, image size 5 1/2” x 4 1/2”. A scene of triage in the bombed out remains of an old building. 2) Larger, more fleshed out drawing of the same scene, with more detail and at a larger size. Drawing almost filles the 11” x 8 1/2” paper, signed lore right, with “Design for dry point” lower left, and paper numbered 615.

‘Painter and printmaker Lawrence Nelson Wilbur was born in Whitman, Massachusetts. He moved to Boston where he began his training as a photoengraver. He moved to Los Angeles in 1921, where he worked in the engraving department of the Los Angeles Times. Relocating to New York in 1925, Wilbur was employed as a finisher by several of New York’s finest engraving shops and by several of the leading magazines of the era.

Wilbur enrolled at the Grand Central Art School, where he studied under N. C. Wyeth and Harvey Dunn.a number of Lawrence Nelson Wilbur traveled to Boston and Los Angeles before settling in New York. In 1925, he enrolled in the Grand Central Art School where he studied under Harvey Dunn, N.C. Wyeth, and Pruett Carter. As a photo-engraving finisher, he worked for the finest engraving shops in New York, and a number of major magazine publishers headquartered there. The combination of his graphic arts skills and his serious pursuit of training in the fine arts formed the basis for his career as a talented draftsman, printmaker, and painter.

His works have been collected by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; the National Gallery of Art and the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and many other institutions. Wilbur received numerous awards for his art, including the Audubon Artist’s medal of honor for a self-portrait in oil in 1957. He was a member of the Salmagundi Club of New York, the Painters and Sculptors Society of New Jersey, and Society of America Graphic Artists. He died in New York City.’ (Artist Bio from Brier Hill Gallery)

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