Untitled (Eisenhower says peace...)

Jesse Howard

1953–60 · Paint on commercial fiberboard (masonite) · Modern and Contemporary Art

Howard’s untitled text-based painting is filled to capacity with two excerpts from contemporary newspaper headlines. Roughly two-thirds of the work is filled with a headline summarizing a speech President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered on November 19, 1953. The remaining bottom third of the composition is given over to a headline concerning the famous kidnapping and murder of a young boy in Kansas City, Missouri. The stark contrast between the black text and the off-white ground lends the painting a graphic intensity that reinforces the painting’s powerful language, while specific words are further punctuated by the presence of hands pointing at them with index fingers. The painting numbers among hundreds of hand-painted signs featuring religious exhortations, political denunciations, and autobiographical details that Howard created and positioned throughout his yard at his home in Fulton, Missouri.

Artist

Jesse Howard

Date

1953–60

Medium

Paint on commercial fiberboard (masonite)

Department

Modern and Contemporary Art

Credit line

Gift of Kohler Foundation Inc., 2017