The Pacific Marine
* screen colors may vary from print colors
Guadalcanal Marine
Print Size: 16" x 20"
fits a ready made frame

All prints are sold unframed
GUADALCANAL MARINE:
PFC. SIDNEY PHILLIPS

Click here to watch a short
video clip about H-Company veteran Sid Phillips featuring
Tom Hanks & Steven Spielberg!
by Matt Hall
Pfc. Sid Phillips knew he was a long way from his home in Mobile, Alabama, when he entered the jungles of Guadalcanal in August 1942. A mortarman with H-Company of the 1st Marines (the same company as Robert Leckie), Sid was 17 years old when he entered combat with the Japanese. Some two years later, when he returned home, the jungle fighting on Guadalcanal and, later, Cape Gloucester, had turned Sid Phillips into an “Old Timer” by Marine standards, and more: he left as a boy, but came home, a man.

Only 950 limited edition prints worldwide, each hand autographed by Sid Phillips and artist Matt Hall.
Prints are sold unframed
USA: $95.00 + $15 SH (PA residents add 6% sales tax)
INTERNATIONAL: $95.00 + $40 EXPRESS AIRMAIL SH
Purchase Matt Hall's "Guadalcanal Marine"
print and autographed "You'll Be Sor-ree!"
book together and save!
USA: $129.95 + $20 SH (PA residents add 6% tax)
INTERNATIONAL: $129.95 + $60 AIRMAIL
Prints are sold unframed
Click play on the video below to watch a short clip about signer
Sid Phillips featuring Tom Hanks & Steven Spielberg!
Sid Phillips - The Pacific
SIDNEY
PHILLIPS
See Sid's story in the
mini-series The Pacific!
Sid Phillips was born Sept 2, 1924, and enlisted in the USMC the day after Pearl Harbor because the Marines promised to put him “eyeball to eyeball” with the Japanese. Passing beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, he departed his land a nervous 17-year-old. Two years later, when he kissed the docks in San Diego, he had come home a hero. Together Sid and his brothers in the legendary 1st Marine Division won the first epic victory of the war, saved Australia, and stopped the Japanese juggernaut in the Pacific. Today, Sid enjoys his golden years surrounded by his family. He and his sister, Katharine, have become internationally-known after their notable roles in Ken Burns’ documentary, The War, and the Tom Hanks/Steven Spielberg miniseries, The Pacific.
Clockwise: Sid in Melbourne during the war. Sid's mortar squad on Guadalcanal, Sid is just right of the Mortar. Sid today.
Artist Matt Hall
MATT HALL

Now acknowledged as the rising talent in military art, Matt Hall worked for years under master visionary, Steven Spielberg, at Spielberg’s DreamWorks company! These days, however, Matt no longer paints to serve the icons of Hollywood—he paints to pay tribute to America’s military heroes.

Matt’s artistic training began as a boy in Missouri, when he met an old-time western artist named Bob Tommy, who just moved from Texas. Tommy encouraged Matt to try his hand at painting. When Tommy saw Matt’s “natural talent,” he became Matt’s mentor and taught him the technique he had amassed in his lifetime of work.

In college, Matt studied painting. After graduation, he broadened his skills, painting
Matt Hall was requested to do a painting for President George W. Bush, showing the F-102s of the Texas ANG. Photo courtesy of the White House.

everything from greeting cards to animation backgrounds. His career changed forever when Spielberg’s DreamWorks company found and hired him. Matt brought and his new bride, Michele, a Texas small-town girl, with him to Hollywood.

At DreamWorks, Matt rose through the ranks, painting concept art. When Steven Spielberg had an idea brewing about the Battle for Iwo Jima,

Matt painted an “epic concept” for him that Spielberg used to pitch the film, Flags of Our Fathers. Soon, Matt was named Franchise Art Director for DreamWorks’ Medal of Honor video games series, one credited with generating interest in WWII history among young people.

Matt grew as an artist through Spielberg’s critiques. “I learned from Steven Spielberg the value of listening to my ‘creative instincts’” Matt explained. “A lot of times, marketing dictates if an idea will be well-received, but Spielberg would often fly against the grain, if he believed in an idea. There was a time when the marketing guys said ‘WWII is done and dead,” but Spielberg followed his instincts and passion and made Saving Private Ryan!”

There, Matt discovered that he, too, possessed a passion to tell the stories of America’s war heroes when DreamWorks had him create paintings for the Congressional Medal of Honor Society. Working

Matt Hall signs "Breakout from Bastogne."

from just a citation and a portrait of a long-deceased MOH recipient, Matt brought their stories back to life. There, he discovered his calling.

Then, in summer 2008, Matt underwent brain surgery to remove a growth behind his eye. “It was a wake-up call,” Matt explained. “It got me thinking, ‘What kind of legacy will my art leave? Will it tell a story of something important? Will it be something people will appreciate 50 or 100 years from now? It was tough to look in mirror and say ‘maybe not’ since the art I was doing would be locked away in a vault once it served its purpose.”
After Matt’s surgery, Valor Studios, a prominent publisher of military art came to Matt with an offer to publish him. Valor Studios had seen Matt’s work for DreamWorks and asked if he wanted to paint full time to honor the heroes of military past and present? Matt heartily agreed. “It was an epiphany on a lot of levels,“ he explained, “Spiritually, artistically, and career-wise. Like that leap of faith when I went to paint for Hollywood, I’ve now decided to follow my passion and paint the stories of men and women whose legacies need to be preserved.”
Don Malarkey explains to Prince Charles the details in Matt Hall's "Brothers in Arms" painting.
Valor Studios and Matt Hall wish to thank the following for their assistance with this project:
Marvin Schroeder and Eric Carlson