Born in Denmark in 1911, Frede Vidar was a well-respected and accomplished painter, muralist, and art instructor. After studying in Europe (including at the Académie Julian in Paris, where he painted under Henri Matisse and Raoul Dufy), Vidar moved in the mid-1920s to San Francisco and continued his studies at the California School of Fine Art. He was a significant figure in the Northern California art scene during the 1930s when he was selected by the Public Works of Art Project as one of 26 artists to paint murals in San Francisco’s Coit Tower. During World War II, Vidar served as a combat artist, reached the rank of captain, served as aide de camp to Major General Hugh Casey, and won a silver star for meritorious service.

Vidar is part of the important story of artists who enlisted in the US Armed Forces and captured their experiences on canvas and paper. Initially, these artists completed murals and other imagery for stateside postings to raise the morale of the troops, but as the war progressed, the military deployed artists to special units and groups to work on propaganda and camouflage and to the front lines as combat artists. Vidar saw military action with the First Marine Division at Guadalcanal and later in the Philippines and Papua New Guinea where he painted Rumor, 1944, which was acquired in 2023.

In Rumor, Vidar depicts the war’s impact on civilians, using stylized figures and a limited somber palette to present the sorrowful aftermath of mechanized warfare. At the center of the composition, Vidar places a child and her mother holding an empty tin plate, against the background of a devasted landscape and the broken remains of a wagon. Drawing on early medieval iconography of the Madonna and Christ child, the figures portray modern-day depictions of godliness and martyrs of war. The looks on all their faces are war-worn but stoic. The inscription at the bottom of the painting reads “Roumors East of Sentani,” the site of an important airfield in Papua.