WASHINGTON D.C.- Faces of the Fallen is an exhibition of approximately 1,300 individual portraits to honor the service men and women killed in Afghanistan and Iraq. The exhibit uses the power of art to recognize, with gratitude and respect, their sacrifice and create a unique and lasting legacy for their families.

Retired Brigadier General Wilma L.Vaught, President of the Women’s Memorial Foundation and Honorary Chair of the exhibit, comments, "We are enormously proud to have been selected by the Faces of the Fallen to host this extraordinary exhibit. It is an honor to share our remarkable site in order to honor the men and women who, while serving their country, lost their lives in Afghanistan and Iraq."

Nearly 200 American artists are working from photographs to create portraits in a variety of media including drawing, painting, sculpture, relief, collage and textiles. Well-known Washington portrait artist Annette Polan was inspired by the photos, and the stories that accompanied them, to conceive the project and recruit the artists.

Working from digitized photographs available on line, the artists have tried to explore and recreate the essence of the person behind the uniform. Some of the portraits in FACES OF THE FALLEN look very much like the photographs. Some do not. Some are painted in color on canvas. Others are drawn in black and white. Some portraits are flat, but some are three-dimensional. Some artists have worked intuitively, using the photographs for inspiration and creating an image that goes well beyond a literal representation. Others have faithfully rendered every medal and stripe.

As you view the image of your loved one, please bear in mind that each artist’s hand and way of seeing is different from another’s – just as each of our fingerprints are unique. All the artists have worked respectfully and from their hearts.

CORE architecture + design is partnering with Faces of the Fallen as exhibition designers. The firm is donating its energy, inspiration and talent to the project, the families of the fallen and the entire nation.
CORE has infused its design with grace and serenity, creating a contemplative and moving display of the nearly 1,300 portraits created by artists from across the country. The exhibition honors and memorializes these fallen service men and women in a way that engages the viewer and creates a reverent display, wherever the portraits are shown. A personalized bronze nameplate identifies each of the fallen.

Based on a portable and simple platform into which mounted portraits are displayed on steel staffs of varying heights, the gallery of faces is an accessible, easily viewed and extremely flexible design. Individual pods mimic sand dunes or a hillside in perspective, evoking the vast and sometimes barren lands where many of the fallen perished. As long and narrow elements, the pods can be arranged end-to-end, stacked in front of each other, two back to back, or in any undulating configuration, depending on the available exhibition space.