The Hoover Institution Library & Archives invite you to a gallery talk with Exhibition Curation & Design Manager Marissa Rhee about Sightseeing at Wars End: World War II as seen in the Bellantoni Papers on Thursday, April 10, 2025, from 12:00 to 12:30 PM PT in the Lou Henry Hoover Gallery at Hoover Tower (550 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305).
In conjunction with our exhibition The Battalion Artist: A Sailor’s Journey Through the South Seas, join us for this free talk about US Navy Seabee Natale Bellantoni’s time at the end of WWII on Okinawa.
The 82-day battle for Okinawa in World War II lasted from April to June 1945. The 78th Seabees spent much of that time aboard the USS J. Franklin Bell until they finally landed on June 17th. Among them was their battalion artist, Natale Bellantoni, who would spend the next six months on the island working and exploring. Over 200 photographs in Bellantoni’s papers reveal what he saw and in this talk Marissa Rhee will share many of them. She will explore what life was like for the Seabee on Okinawa, his perceptions of the locals he encountered, and contrast Bellantoni’s record of the island with other accounts from the time. Very few photographic records during this end of war transition period on Okinawa exist in such breadth and innocence as are in the Bellantoni papers, giving attendees rare access to the sights of a destroyed island and its population void of government objectives.
Following the event, the Library & Archives invite guests to explore The Battalion Artist and Hoover@100: Ideas Defining a Century exhibitions.
About the Speaker
Marissa Rhee specializes in the design, interpretation, and creation of physical and online exhibitions at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives. Before joining Hoover, she was Executive Director of the Robert Louis Stevenson Museum and managed the care of private and public collections, including those at the Roswell Museum and Art Center in New Mexico and the Napa Valley Museum in California. Rhee enjoys learning and sharing unique stories from history through cultural heritage collections both in traditional exhibitions and with new technological applications. She holds a BA in Art History from the University of Southern California, an MA in Museums Studies from University College London, and a certificate from the Western Archives Institute.
