Carry On

Artist / Maker Christian Petersen (Danish - American, 1885 - 1961)

Date1942

MediumPainted plaster

Dimensions33 x 55 x 29 in. (83.8 x 139.7 x 73.7 cm)

ClassificationsSculpture

Credit LineGift of Charlotte Petersen; Memorial Union, ISU, Ames, Iowa; CPAC, Transferred to CPAC. In the Christian Petersen Art Collection, Christian Petersen Art Museum, University Museums, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa.

Object numberUM2007.10

Status

On view

Collections

CultureAmerican

Label TextFrom the University Museums Collections Handbook, vol. 2, 2025: Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Petersen began work on a sculpture that would symbolize the continuity of war from World War I to World War II. He revisited an earlier sculptural idea, To You From Falling Hands (1932),9 in which a young, dying soldier lifts a torch to pass on to another fighter, inspired by the WWI poem “In Flanders Field.” Petersen’s sculpture, Carry On, also referred to as Men of Two Wars,10 combines the figure of the young man, a World War I doughboy, with that of a World War II G.I. Eliminating the torch present in his earlier 1932 sculpture, Petersen makes his point by placing the G.I. beside the soldier from the earlier war, ready to carry on the renewed fight. Both soldiers gaze outward— the doughboy struggling to lift his head, while the G.I. maintains a grim, determined focus. For Petersen, the most personally troubling aspect of the 1941 declaration of war was the realization that it would be his students who would bear the burden of fighting. This awareness of the sacrifices made by the younger generation likely influenced the shift in the tone of his World War II art. In 1942, he began work on a war sculpture that marked a distinct departure from the themes and style of his World War I monuments.

Published ReferencesIowa State Daily, Dec. 5, 1942; Image: Des Moines Tribune, Nov. 26, 1942; The Gazette (Cedar Rapids, Iowa), Dec. 27, 1942; The Gazette (Cedar Rapids, Iowa), Nov. 29, 1942; Wallace's' Farmer, Col 68, Issue 1, 1943; Iowa State Daily, June 21, 1961 listed as "Men of Two Wars"; Des Moines Tribune, May 11,1964.

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