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John Lawrence Doyle was known for his lithographs reflecting his fascination with the human condition. For over a decade, Doyle studied ethnology and anthropology.
Directly after the end of the Vietnam War, and in anticipation of the U.S. Bicentennial in 1976, Doyle created a series of 11 lithographs - "Sharpshooters 76;" which presented soldiers from wars of America’s past in chronological order.
“I wanted to do something that people at the time didn’t particularly want to deal with — war. Particularly, coming so close to the end of the Vietnam era. Folks just sort of wanted to forget it. I also wanted to show that the history of this country is a rather bloody affair, a war every twenty years or so. Courageous no doubt, but dehumanizing nonetheless. This dehumanizing process is what I hoped to show through the evolution of the wars, from the somewhat gentlemanly conducted affair of the Revolution to the dehumanized slaughter of Vietnam.”
From World War I is "Doughboy," a U.S. service member dressed in a threatening manner. Some say the doughboy nickname was due to the dumpling-shaped buttons on their uniforms. World War I was the bloodiest war in history at that point, and chemical warfare allowed for mass killings at a distance on levels previously unseen. Doyle depicts his soldier wearing a gas mask, perhaps hinting at the
dehumanizing impact of technology in war.