at Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University Through November 30, 2008 Walking through Letters from Japan: The Photographs of John Swope, I saw images of Henry Fonda and Jimmy Stewart. In one photo, Jimmy Stewart stands humorously in the desert, staring oddly at what looks to be a gas-powered model airplane. Here, Stewart looks like It’s a Wonderful Life’s boyish George Bailey, wearing a white oxford shirt for a headscarf and aviator sunglasses. For four decades, Swope was a Los Angeles based photographer with privileged access to some of the silver screen’s best actors, during the height of Hollywood’s golden age. After moments of scanning Swope’s famous glam-portraiture, I approached the next room, which featured a large open space, its walls lined with a massive collection of Swope’s images of Japan. Most of the photographs were mounted in the same fashion, usually in a straight line and sometimes grouped together for a touch of narrative. Each photograph was roughly the same size in shape and scale. The most engaging and powerful component to this exhibition is the writing, which accompanies the images Swope created as a US Naval Photographer in the summer of 1945. For three weeks, his assignment was to document the release of allied prisoners of war, just prior to the surrender of the Japanese.

In one photo, Jimmy Stewart stands humorously in the desert, staring oddly at what looks to be a gas-powered model airplane.

In a 144-page letter that he wrote to his wife, actor Dorothy McGuire, Swope discussed the people he was meeting, the horrors of war, and the pure devastation he found while walking through the charred villages of Japan armed only with a 75mm. Rolleiflex camera. The letters not only serve as perspectival context, but as educational text as well, and show up in the exhibition’s wall labels and display cases. These descriptive letters also provide insight into the photographer’s mind during the documentation process, something we so rarely have access to in art exhibitions. Because exhibitions tend to focus on objects rather than context, we typically do not have an opportunity to read what the artist thinks of his/her work. In these letters, Swope demonstrates his ability to relate to his subjects as human beings. He describes the fear harbored by those he met. He also describes how WWII should be a testament to all wars, so that these atrocities never occur again. In August of 1945, Swope successfully documented the aftermath of a war he despised. The exhibition provided new meaning for me about a war that is often portrayed as noble or just in the US. The imagery was powerful, eye opening, and relevant to our current wartime malaise. by Keith Brown