It’s an impressive list of aviation history: the Curtis P-40 Warhawk, the North American P-51 Mustang, the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, the Lockheed F-80 Shooting Star and the North American F-86 Saber. To talk about these historically significant aircraft with fellow aviation buffs is one thing. To actually meet a man who was a type-rated qualified pilot in each, and in fifteen other equally significant aircraft—well, that’s akin to finding the Holy Grail of Aviation! Our cover artist, Ernie Jordan, graciously shared his story of how an Air Force pilot’s life started a circuitous journey toward art.

As an Army Air Force pilot in 1944, Ernie shuttled airplanes back home from England at the end of World War II. “I’d fly them back from England to the United States, or sometimes I would go pick them up from a base in Connecticut and fly them to a ‘graveyard’ in Texas.” For a nation weary of war, Ernie’s job was to help dispose of the huge amounts of surplus equipment, which meant he flew airplanes to the dismantlers. “I never flew in combat, but I got to fly some great airplanes,” Ernie fondly recalls.

When the Korean War began, Ernie was recalled to duty and assigned to the 40th Fighter Squadron. In Korea, Ernie flew combat missions: first in WWII-era P-51s; then in jet-powered F-80s, the first operational jet U.S. fighter; and finally in F-86s, the most advanced jet fighter of its day.
So, with that as a build-up, here’s an unlikely question: “How does a WWII and Korean War fighter pilot become a respected impressionist artist?” For Ernie, it all began with the Red Cross.

“While I was stationed in Korea, the Red Cross representative came into the Officers’ Club to tell us that she had a Japanese painter on her staff who was willing to give lessons to anyone who cared to learn,” says Ernie. Because there was very little to do between combat missions, Ernie took the painter up on his offer. “He didn’t know a word of English and I knew about 200 words of Japanese.” Ernie chuckles as he recounts his first meeting with that artist. Over the course of two years, however, the painter taught Ernie the fundamentals of art that have carried his career through today.

“He was a portrait artist, and a very good one,” Ernie recalls. “His style was very realistic, and I remember that all of his paintings looked exactly like their subjects.” Under his instructor’s direction, Ernie sketched often, usually of the people and things he saw around him on the base. As one would imagine, his early works from his “Korea Period” were mostly portraits and still lifes, courtesy of his instructor’s own preference for portraits.

Although Ernie enjoyed painting, the demands of corporate life after he left the Air Force left little time for art and family, so he mostly set art aside. Settling in San Francisco, he painted from time to time when he could fully concentrate on it, but those opportunities were few in coming.

When Ernie retired in 1988, he and his wife, Sandra, raced their sloop in the Pacific Cup Race, an annual race between San Francisco and Oahu, Hawaii—something they had always wanted to do. At the conclusion of the race, they decided to leave California and head east to find a place they liked and resettle. On one of those trips, they stopped in Mandeville to visit an old friend. As is often the case of those who fall under the enchantment of the northshore, they fell in love with the area and decided to make a new home in Mandeville. Ernie recalls, “We were on our way to somewhere else, but once we stopped here, we made up our minds to stay. We just love the area and the people and have enjoyed living here so much.”

About ten years ago, during a forty-one day business trip and vacation in France, the palette and brush again called to Ernie and he answered. He says he became fascinated with the walkways and cobblestone paths in France. He wondered how they would look in paint, and what challenges the subtle textures and shading would present. Ernie says his desire to paint was re-ignited, so much so that he bought a sketchbook midway through the trip and began to sketch everywhere he went.

With his renewed desire to paint, Ernie eventually became a student of renowned New Orleans artist Adrian Deckbar. She encouraged Ernie and several other promising artists to paint with her in weekly private sessions. Ernie, who remains close friends with Adrian, says her influence and tutelage were invaluable to him. “I admired her work and really enjoyed the way she taught.”

Ernie describes his preferred style as impressionistic, but argues that sometimes his work gets more realistic than he would prefer it to be. To remedy that, he says: “If I get too tight (realistic) working with oils, I’ll go to the chalks and work with that for a while.” He feels that realism is not suited to chalk media, because it is difficult to show as fine a detail as is possible with oils. So, in effect, Ernie uses the nature of chalk to “loosen” himself up in much the same way musicians practice old standards before a concert of their serious work. He feels it has been a successful technique for him. Ernie says that he’ll “do some commission work, where I have to be more impressionistic, usually through local designer Nancy Robbins. In fact, she insists on it!”

Being fully aware that combat pilots and crews in World War II typically personalized their aircraft with pointed messages to the enemy, and, shall we say, colorful images of their sweethearts back home, I had to ask Ernie if his art talents were ever pressed into service. He said, “I never flew any combat in World War II. I was a ferry pilot, and flew aircraft home from England, so they were either already decorated or the nose art was painted over.” He chuckled, because that was his polite way of saying that most nose art seen in Europe was deemed too racy by military censors to be seen at home, so it was often painted over. When permitted, nose art now is much more subdued that it was in World War II.

Ernie’s interests in art and flying still go hand-in-hand. When he is not painting, he attends regular reunions with his Korean fighter squadron, which is still active as the 40th Fighter/Test Squadron, stationed at Eglin AFB in Florida. The active duty unit asked to attend the reunions, and was welcomed by the veteran pilots. Ernie recalls one rather interesting experience at a recent reunion at NASA’s Johnson Space Flight Center in Houston: “As we toured the facility and saw the astronaut training facilities, the astronauts would all stop and get us—the old timers—to talk about the airplanes we flew. The guys in the squadron and I were just awed by all the technology that was surrounding us, and we couldn’t figure out why these astronauts who had flown the shuttle and everything else were so interested in us. When we asked why, they told us, ‘Yeah, we’ve flown the shuttle, but you guys got to fly the really cool stuff!’”

Ernie’s work is handled exclusively in Louisiana by Nancy Robbins Fine Art, 1291 N. Causeway Boulevard in Mandeville. You can also see more of his work at www.erniejordan.com.