Who is leon golub

Still strikingly relevant today, his paintings explore themes of struggle, conflict, and perverse power relations especially in times of war. He was inspired by ancient and contemporary source material alike; a gleaner of information of news stories from popular media, but also a learned classical art historian.

Intrigued by the individual, he made portraits of significant personalities, yet simultaneously Golub rejected self-involvement to instead inspire engagement, collaboration, and to situate his art as a call for active resistance against all injustice. Living in Paris during the early s, Golub and his partner Nancy Spero were confronted by the haunting remnants of the Holocaust. They returned to the United States with an unflinching willingness to confront cultural darkness, only to be eerily greeted by the onset of the Vietnam War.

Golub's understanding of the human condition penetrated so deeply that he successfully broke down barriers and transcended boundaries during his own lifetime, for example he was one of only a few white artists invited to be included in the exhibition Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art Son of Jewish immigrants from Ukraine and Lithuania, Golub started making art from a young age.

He initially intended to become an art historian and attended the University of Chicago where he received a BA in Art History in In particular, his studies in ancient Greek and Latin greatly influenced his work and would later become visible in his paintings. He drew inspiration from Greek tragedy and mythological scenes, as well as from Roman sculpture. While a student, in , he saw Pablo Picasso's Guernica at the Chicago Arts Club; this image made a great impact on the young artist and powered his passion towards a highly political, and socially engaged creative vision.

As he explained: " Guernica was like that. It was an art object that dealt with our world, OK? I was interested in seeing what that world looked like and was to a certain extent politically aware. Golub began to paint images of men, specifically heroes, in classic moments of extreme glory and demise.

Stemming from his acknowledgment and disdain for the fact that men ruled the world, whilst simultaneously looking at classical statues and popular athletic poses, writing frieze-like scenes of masculine struggle emerged. In this particular work, ten nude male figures engage in a frantic battle. Their fleshy, intertwined, thickly traced limbs suggest violence, mutilation, and slaughter. The lack of references, such as a recognizable background, or a defined character, refers to an eternal and meaningless state of violence; there is no information in regards to the cause of the battle, or a signifier indicating what may divide the group of characters: they are just fighting.

Golub used a series of Hellenistic references to develop his paintings. The horizontal arrangement of the figures in Gigantomachy II is reminiscent of those of ancient Doric friezes. Furthermore, the title directly references a Greek mythological battle between the gods and the giants. Art critic and historian Thomas McEvilley described this painting as "an allegorical picture of history", " a meaningless and endless battle.

Through this universal scene, Golub formulated a critique, albeit still relatively indirect and abstract, of the violence of his time, a period marked by the Vietnam crisis. Marking a shift from previous work, Vietnam II is an exceptional example of Golub's dramatic large-scale figurative style that explicitly addresses contemporary issues, here the Vietnam War.

Over three metres high and twelve metres long, the composition is divided into two parts: on the left hand side American soldiers direct their weapons towards frightened Vietnamese civilians at the opposite side of the already torn canvas.

The gestural dialogue between these two groups is striking; the weapons of the aggressors prepare to fire on the screaming victims; the violence of the soldiers provides contrast to the fear of the civilians, and most notably to the look of terror expressed by the boy at the forefront of the picture. In suitable symbolic guise, the aggressors wear black and point their protruding guns, whilst the innocents are clothed in white and curve their arms in attempt to shield one another.

In these, the largest and most physical paintings of his career, Golub adopted an active stance against the Vietnam War, engaged with the progression of the conflict throughout the Vietnam series. This dramatic and assured figuration brought Golub long awaited public and critical recognition. He had his first solo exhibition in New York in and by the end of the s, Charles Saatchi had begun to collect his work.

No longer alone on his quest, this was the moment when many other artists also began to reject Minimalism and focus attention on the figurative once more. DuBuffet, like Golub had been making such figurative work for many decades and is famous for founding the art movement, Art Brut, also influential for Golub.

The s saw another remarkable, and final, shift in Leon Golub's work: chaos, death, dogs, and skulls scattered in symbolist formation to create mysterious, more internal, and often dystopian scenarios.

In this sense, working in a more fragmented way, piecing together elements in a collage -like manner, in Golub was suitably invited to design four stained glass windows depicting the life of Joseph for the Temple Sholom in Chicago. Relentlessly engaged in politics, art, and his own identity, Golub died aged 82, in New York on August 8, Golub's uniquely expressive figuration and representation of universal human cruelty has a resonance across all time and culture.

Although much of Golub's most troubling and memorable work was made in relation to the U. Thus the work has inspired an entire generation of artists in the United States and abroad, with regard to the representation of war. The influence of his paintings, with regard to the male body fighting and more generally the dark side of humanity, can be seen in particular in the work of contemporary LA based artist, Cleon Peterson, and in the paintings of the London based, Marcelle Hanselaar.

It was long before it was fashionable for artists to attack current USA conflict endeavors that Golub was making his voice heard with regard to the Vietnam War. His overtly harsh visual commentary on wartime struggle, and particularly in opposition to Vietnam, has been embraced by a number of artists.

Peter Saul blended expressionism and figuration, albeit using a much more 'pop' aesthetic, to respond to controversial themes leading to unsettling conclusions. Similarly, and more recently, film director and artist, Steve McQueen has also engaged in opinionated anti-conflict visual narratives in his work. Furthermore, the textural quality of Golub's style endows his figures with a three-dimensional 'life' beyond the flat canvas, and as such his technique bears reference to the paintings of Anselm Kiefer.

Golub's work is testament to the fact that regardless of styles and movements that tend to come and go, there is a thematic aspect of art - interest in the eternal pains of humanity - that forever remains unchanged.

Although well known and respected since the s, it was not until that the Serpentine Gallery in London held a large career retrospective of Golub's work. Robert Therrien — Karel Appel — Elizabeth Murray — Frank Auerbach born Arnulf Rainer born Ernest Trova — Manolo Millares — Kitaj — Open Today until 5 p. Events Museum Admission Sign In.

Infinity Mirror Rooms. Diversity Apprenticeship Program. By Leon Golub in the Collection. Leon Golub, Pinochet Saluting. Mercenaries V.