LCpl. Thomas E. Rivers Jr.
KIA 4/28/2010
1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division
Painted by John Cleaveland
Combat Art Collection at the U.S. Marine Corps Museum
A note about this painting…
I graduated from art school in 1986, and I’ve been painting landscapes ever since. About 25 years ago I started painting landscapes from Civil War battlefields. I worked my way through as many of them as I could visit, always trying to bury myself in as much of the unique history of each place before I visited them.
After 18 years, I walked away from that subject.
Then, this painting. It came from a friend’s Memorial Day post of a photograph.
Robert Rivers posted a photograph of a Marine patrol in the desert. Initially that’s all I knew about it. I immediately contacted him about the possibility of using the photograph for the subject of a painting. When he got back to me with the details of the photo I felt a wave of sadness for his loss. I approached him about the possibility of my basing a painting on Lance Corporal Thomas Rivers photograph, I inquired if it would be okay with the family for me to try to make something meaningful from it. I worked on it for a little more than two years before I finally felt like it was done.
Before I brought the painting up to the United States Marine Corps Museum for consideration to be placed in the Combat Art Galleries Collection, I had shown it to numerous Marines and Soldiers, some of whom had done tours In Afghanistan and Iraq, some in Vietnam And other conflicts. I only allow myself to think I had gotten it right after listening to the things they had to say about it. They assured me that I had captured that moment accurately.
The bottom line is, this painting is about a moment In Lance Corporal Thomas Rivers’ life, of his comrades in there unflinching service to our country. If It can convey to the viewer
that and all the other complex feelings that come with it, then 32 years of painting will have been justified.
Learn more about the United States Marine Corps Combat Art Gallery