Artist to speak at Museum of Flight

Michael Reagan draws portraits of fallen Servicemembers

By Tyler Hemstreet on August 25, 2011

The Museum of Flight will host a talk by Fallen Heroes Project founder Michael Reagan at 2 p.m. on Aug. 20.

The Edmonds-based artist has created more 2,200 custom, hand-drawn portraits of service men and women killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. Each drawing was done free of charge for the family of the fallen service person, and in Reagan's words, "each portrait is intended to show our love and respect for these heroes and their families."

Reagan, a Vietnam War veteran, will talk about the drawings and the Fallen Heroes Project during the program, which is free with admission to the museum.

Throughout his career, Reagan has assisted charities such as Seattle's Children's Hospital raise more than $10 million through his drawn and donated autographed celebrity portraits. Over a span of three decades, he has drawn some 10,000 portraits including more than 1,500 portraits of celebrities, professional athletes, U.S. presidents and other heads of state. Reagan and the Fallen Heroes Project have also been recognized by the Washington state Senate.

"Our mission is to honor the American Fallen Heroes for their ultimate sacrifice during the war against terrorism," Reagan writes on his website, fallenheroes.org. "Each portrait is intended to show our love and respect for these heroes and their families."

According to his biography on the website, Regan "has unlimited love and respect for the soldiers he draws, and he feels very deeply the tragedy of their loss and the depth of emotion that surrounds his work. He has such compassion for the families with whom he deals every single day."

The biography goes on to explain that everything he does for Servicemembers and their families is rooted in his own honor and respect and he his "very concerned that nobody use the deaths as leverage to promote their own political or religious agendas."

For more information on the museum, visit www.museumofflight.org.