Faces of the Fallen: America’s Artists Honor America’s Heroes, the award-winning exhibit on display at the Women In Military Service For America Memorial since March 2005, will close on June 10, 2007. The exhibit features the portraits of the first 1,319 service members who lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, from October 10, 2001, through November 11, 2004.
Since the opening, more than 650,000 visitors have seen this powerful tribute to America’s military heroes.
Formal closing ceremonies for the exhibit will be held at the Women’s Memorial on June 7, 2007. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Peter Pace will provide remarks and a symbolic number of portraits will be formally presented to next-of-kin of the fallen.
Thanks to the generosity of UPS and The UPS Store at the Village of Shirlington, Arlington, Va., the remaining portraits will be expertly packed and returned to designated family members over the coming weeks. The employees from The UPS Store will donate after-work hours to accomplish this task. The many hundreds of items of memorabilia and tokens of remembrance left with the portraits by family members, friends and anonymous visitors will be archived with the assistance of the National Park Service.
Conceived by renowned Washington, D.C., portrait artist Annette Polan, Faces includes the work of 200 professional artists recruited by Polan from across the country. The artists, who developed the portraits of the fallen service members from newspaper photographs, donated their time and talent to the exhibit. According to Polan, „Faces of the Fallen has brought Americans together to mourn and to celebrate lives lost. American artists gave each an identity and a face that will always be remembered by a family, by a school, by a community, and in turn, by a country. This is what we look like; this is who are.“
Faces of the Fallen has received bipartisan support from a distinguished panel of honorary co-chairs including Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Sen. John Warner (R-VA), Rep. John D. Dingell (D-MI), Rep. John M. McHugh (R-NY), and Brigadier General Wilma L. Vaught, USAF (Ret.). The Department of Defense and all five branches of the armed forces have assisted this national, all-volunteer project in contacting the families of the service members pictured in the exhibit. Faces of the Fallen is financed entirely by private funds with CORE architecture + design creating the exhibit’s design and the Women In Military Service For America Memorial donating the space.
Faces of the Fallen has been recognized with the 2006 Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Outstanding Public Service Award for „extraordinary support of America’s service members and their families“ and CORE architecture + design received the 2005 Pro Bono Publico Award from the Washington Architectural Foundation for its deeply moving design. The exhibit was also named one of The Washington Post’s 2005 top five gallery exhibitions.
For more information about Faces of the Fallen, visit www.facesofthefallen.org.
MEDIA NOTES: To speak with a Faces of the Fallen spokesperson, a contributing artist or a family member, or for an interview during the portrait pack-out at the Memorial, contact Chris Vassil at 202-414-0779, cvassil@susandavis.com.
About The UPS Store – The Village at Shirlington
The UPS Store retail locations are independently owned and operated by licensed franchisees of Mail Boxes, Etc., Inc. (MBE), an indirect subsidiary of United Parcel Service, Inc. The UPS Store comprises the world’s largest franchise network of retail shipping, postal, and business service centers, with more than 5,800 locations around the world. The UPS Store – The Village at Shirlington (Arlington, Virginia) was established in 2004 and is owned by Julie Sterling. For additional information please visit www.theupsstore.com/4832.htmю
