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A sculptor, Hart is best known for his Three Soldiers, a bronze statue at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washingon, D.C., which put a human face next to the stark granite "Wall", and the "Creation Sculptures" at the National Cathedral. Art critics consider Ex Nihilo ("Out of Nothing"), a 21- x 15-foot sculpture at the base of the Cathedral, to be his masterwork. Hart died in Baltimore August 13 of lung cancer. He was 56. From This is True for 15 August 1999 Suggestions for further reading:
 By: Eve Bunting List Price: $5.95 Amazon Price: $5.95 Editorial Review: A young boy and his father visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.  By: Laura Palmer List Price: $13.95 Amazon Price: $11.86 Editorial Review: For the first time, one book gives voice to the haunting, painful, tender, and healing tales of those who lost so much in America's least popular war.  By: Michael Sofarelli List Price: $24.95 Amazon Price: $19.46 Editorial Review: Since its creation in 1982, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial has become the most visited National Park Services site. Each year, 4.5 million people come to the Wall. Many of them leave letters or other special objects. Every night, park rangers collect and inventory these mementos—now numbering well over 90,000—and put them into government storage. Michael Sofarelli, the son of a Vietnam War veteran, has combed through the archives searching for the most gripping letters and objects: a mother awaiting word of her missing son, a former comrade recounting a battle story, a pair of well-worn ballet slippers, and a collection of cigars. These items are not only a tribute to the fallen soldiers; they pay tribute as well to the families and friends who waited at home and the comrades who have never forgotten their brothers. They tell the story of a war that is still being fought by many who served and a conflict that changed the lives of many Americans forever.  By: Kristin Ann Hass List Price: $18.95 Amazon Price: $17.05 Editorial Review: On May 9, 1990, a bottle of Jack Daniels, a ring with letter, a Purple Heart and Bronze Star, a baseball, a photo album, an ace of spades, and a pie were some of the objects left at the Vietnam Veterans War Memorial. For Kristin Hass, this eclectic sampling represents an attempt by ordinary Americans to come to terms with a multitude of unnamed losses as well as to take part in the ongoing debate of how this war should be remembered. Hass explores the restless memory of the Vietnam War and an American public still grappling with its commemoration. In doing so it considers the ways Americans have struggled to renegotiate the meanings of national identity, patriotism, community, and the place of the soldier, in the aftermath of a war that ruptured the ways in which all of these things have been traditionally defined. Hass contextualizes her study of this phenomenon within the history of American funerary traditions (in particular non-Anglo traditions in which material offerings are common), the history of war memorials, and the changing symbolic meaning of war. Her evocative analysis of the site itself illustrates and enriches her larger theses regarding the creation of public memory and the problem of remembering war and the resulting causalities--in this case not only 58,000 soldiers, but also conceptions of masculinity, patriotism, and working-class pride and idealism.  By: Raymond MichalowskiJill Dubisch List Price: $22.95 Amazon Price: $22.95 |
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