The USO Metropolitan Washington recently honored director Steven Spielberg for his philanthropic contributions and his critically acclaimed depiction of American soldiers during the D-Day invasion in the movie Saving Private Ryan.
The award is a 30-inch version of Across the Beach, a sculpture by Lawrence artist Jim Brothers. The full-size statue is to be unveiled May 31 at the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Va.
Across the Beach is a dramatic depiction of a soldier, laden with equipment, dragging a mortally injured soldier up the beach. The soldier does not know if the injured man will live but is trying to get him to a shelter. Soldiers had to drag wounded to the front line because there wasn't any place to retreat.
Richard Burrow, president of the National D-Day Memorial Foundation in Bedford, Va., said the selection of the piece for the award was a tribute to the artist and the work he had done at the memorial.
Burrow said Spielberg seemed taken aback by the high quality of the award.
We were going to take it and have it boxed up and sent to him, but he wanted to take it to New York with him the next day, Burrow said. It weighs close to 100 pounds and it wasn't an easy thing to take around. But he wanted it with him.
Paul Dorrell, owner of Leopold Gallery in Brookside and Brothers' agent, also has been a consultant on the D-Day memorial, which is under construction in Virginia.
Spielberg's film is mostly gritty; realistic without too much sentiment, Dorrell sad. It's interesting that he was working toward that in his medium while we were working toward that in ours. I think that's the influence of the post-Vietnam era.