Street Fighting

Harvey Dunn's 1918 drawing captures urban combat during World War I with visceral immediacy. An American soldier in olive drab fires his M1903 Springfield rifle, muzzle flash streaking yellow across the composition, while a fallen comrade lies prostrate amid rubble. Dunn, a renowned illustrator and combat artist, rendered the scene in charcoal, pastel, and watercolor on textured paper—media that emphasize the gritty materiality of street warfare. His unflinching depiction of casualties and destruction conveys the brutal reality of close-quarters fighting in European cities, moving beyond patriotic heroics to show war's human cost. The drawing demonstrates how fine artists documented the conflict for American audiences.