Vonnegut

Born on Armistice Day, November 11th, 1922 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. came of age as World War Two gained momentum and shortly before the attack on Pearl Harbor and Adolf Hitler declared war against the United States. After struggling at Cornell University and being placed on academic probation, Vonnegut lost his eligibility for student deferment. Rather than waiting to be drafted, he enlisted into the U.S. Army in 1943. By late summer, 1944, Vonnegut was sent to Europe with the 106th Infantry Division and quickly found himself fighting in the Battle of the Bulge. He was captured by German soldiers, along with about 50 other Americans and taken to a prison camp near Dresden.

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During that time, Vonnegut lived in a slaughterhouse and worked in a factory in the city for several months. On February 13th, 1945, U.S. Allied forces bombed Dresden, leveled the city, and killed thousands and thousands of civilians. The young soldier survived by hiding in a meat locker far underground. Along with the other surviving American prisoners, Vonnegut was forced to search for bodies among the destruction until they were evacuated to another location near the edge of Saxony where they were eventually let go. By the end of May, 1945, Vonnegut returned to the U.S. where he continued his military service at Fort Riley, Kansas. Before he was discharged from the U.S. Army, he received a Purple Heart for frostbite.

Throughout the rest of his life he steadily grew into the beloved writer known today for his books, Slaughterhouse Five, The Sirens of Titan, and Breakfast of Champions, as well as dozens of short stories, essays, and articles. Noted for his satirical writing style, Vonnegut also often included witty drawings in his texts used to further emphasize his farcical plots and situations. Later in his life, Kurt Vonnegut continued to sketch and eventually teamed up with a printmaker from Kentucky, Joe Petro III. Together they turned many of Vonnegut’s designs into limited edition screen prints. In November of 2016, 50 of these prints were added to the National Veterans Art Museum’s permanent collection. This exhibit features selections of this special collection illustrating the sometimes abstracted, sometimes sharply literal imaginings of one of America’s best-known authors and veteran artists, Kurt Vonnegut Jr.