WASHINGTON — U.S. Coast Guard Art Program (COGAP) artist Robert Semler received the George Gray Award for Artistic Excellence at a ceremony July 5 at the Salmagundi Club in New York City.
Semler's work, "Guardians of the Sea," depicts the crew of a 47-foot motor lifeboat rescuing a survivor of a ship disaster as a threatening storm approaches. A Dolphin HH-65 helicopter hovers overhead with air crew waiting to hoist the survivor aboard while in the distance a second motor lifeboat approaches the scene to assist rescue efforts. The George Gray Award for Artistic Excellence is COGAP's best in show award and is named after its co-founder.
U.S. Coast Guard Vice Commandant Adm. Charles Michel also formally accepted 26 paintings by 24 artists into the service's 2016 Coast Guard Art Program collection. The 26 works of art accepted into the collection depict the myriad of missions the Coast Guard engages in daily such as protecting America's waterways, drug and migrant interdiction, marine environmental protection and search-and-rescue operations.
The 2016 collection will be on display at the Salmagundi Club through July 15. It will then go to Federal Hall National Memorial in lower Manhattan for a nearly two-month-long exhibition opening July 19.
COGAP artwork is exhibited at museums around the United States and makes use of fine art to educate diverse audiences about the Coast Guard. The service continues to address an abundance of challenges as it works to maintain the nation's security at home and abroad and execute its 11 statutory missions, including defense readiness, drug and illegal migrant interdiction and aids to navigation in the nation's waterways. COGAP art provides visual testimony to the unique contribution the service makes to the nation in its multifaceted roles as a military, humanitarian and law enforcement organization.
Coast Guard artists are a talented cadre— mostly professional artists—who donate their time and give their work for free to the Coast Guard. Today, the collection comprises about 2,000 works showing the missions performed by the service's force of 40,400 active duty members.
This year marks the program's 35th anniversary. The Salmagundi Club has been its sponsor since its inception.
For more information about COGAP, visit www.uscg.mil/art.
For more information about the Salmagundi Club, visit www.salmagundi.org.
For more information about Federal Hall, visit www.nps.gov/feha/index.htm.