Vietnamese Head

Leon Golub

1970 · Acrylic on linen · Modern and Contemporary Art

This visceral work by Leon Golub, painted at the height of the artist’s involvement in the anti-war movement, depicts the severed head of a Vietnamese man. As an artist and activist committed to social justice, Golub opposed both war and the human suffering that accompanied it, and he often depicted both the victims and perpetrators of state-sponsored violence. For the brutal subjects he represented, the artist developed a style equally evocative of cruelty: the man’s head seen here, for instance, is rendered with slashing strokes of the brush. These painterly marks read as much as wounds or lacerations as they do gestures, with the movement of the brush correlated with that of a knife.

Artist

Leon Golub

Date

1970

Medium

Acrylic on linen

Department

Modern and Contemporary Art

Credit line

Gift of Dan Miller, in loving memory of the artist, 2016