“Though There Be Fury on the Waves”, Victor Jorgensen at Sea, 1943–1945 at Portland Art Museum

This show at the Portland Art Museum was originally scheduled for Mar 14, 2020 – Apr 25, 2021. Like everything else, it was interrupted by the pandemic. However, until we are capable of safely going to museums again, PAM has made this exhibition available in a video. Here’s the description from the PAM website:

“In 1942, Portland-born photographer Victor Jorgensen enlisted in the Navy. Edward Steichen, the renowned modernist photographer and lieutenant commander who oversaw Naval photography during World War II, selected Jorgensen—a Reed College attendee and editor at The Oregonian newspaper—to serve with his elite Naval Aviation Photographic Unit. Between 1943 and 1945, Jorgensen photographed on board the aircraft carriers USS Lexington and USS Monterey, the destroyer USS Albert W. Grant, and the hospital ship USS Solace, which served in the Pacific during the world-altering conflict.

The works in this exhibition draw from a recent acquisition of vintage prints gifted to the Museum by Victoria Jorgensen Carman and Lee Jorgensen, the photographer’s daughters. The exhibition commemorates the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II and Jorgensen’s significant contribution to the field of documentary photography.”

Organized by the Portland Art Museum and curated by Julia Dolan, Ph.D., The Minor White Curator of Photography.

Victor Jorgensen, Refueling at Sea Shortly Before Joining Task Force 50 for Operation Galvanic, 1943.