User:Austinz175/Leon Golub

Career
From 1959 through 1964, Golub and his wife, artist Nancy Spero opted to live in Paris, a move occasioned in part by the belief that Europe would be more receptive to their work dealing overtly with issues of power, sexual and political. During this period Golub's work increased in size because of larger available studio space and the inspiration of the French tradition of large-scale history painting. He also switched from using lacquer to acrylics, left more of the surface unpainted, and began to grind the paint directly into the canvas. While in Italy for the year of 1956, both Golub and Spero were profoundly influenced by the figurative works of Etruscan and Roman art, whose narratives addressed ancient themes of power and violence.

When Golub returned to New York State from Paris in 1964, the Vietnam War was escalating, and he responded with his two series: Napalm and Vietnam, works that show the vulnerability of the body while also demonstrating the power of modern weapons. Golub's work for his Vietnam paintings were at first titled Assassins, eventually being changed to not attribute the intention of the soldiers. One of his longest works would include that of Vietnam II, with it stretching over twelve meters. He and Spero became active with Artists and Writers Protest, "the first such group to take a public stand against the war". This group would be centered around the organization of anti war activities. In 1967, as part of the group's Angry Arts Week, Golub organized The Collage of Indignation, a collaborative work by over 150 artists which he described as "not political art, but rather an expression of popular revulsion."

Golub had a career breakthrough that same year when he was selected to exhibit five paintings at the Museum of Modern Art's "New Images of Man" show in New York City. His work was included alongside that of such established and rising artists as Willem de Kooning, Francis Bacon and Jackson Pollock.

In the mid-1970s, Golub was beset with self-doubt caused by lack on interest in his work. Between the years of 1974 to 1976, Golub would cut up and destroy many works he produced up to this period and nearly abandoned painting. In the late seventies, however, over the course of three years he would produce more than a hundred portraits of public figures, with sixty of those portraits having been completed between February and September 1976. His interest in creating these portraits would stem from a resemblance between a young Gerald Ford and a soldier from one of his works, Vietnam III. Among the portraits were political and military leaders, dictators, and religious figures. Leon Golub: Paintings, 1950-2000 includes several portraits of Nelson Rockefeller and Ho Chi Minh, along with images of Fidel Castro, Francisco Franco, Richard Nixon, and Henry Kissinger. Some of these portraits were included in the display 'Leon Golub: Political Portraits' (2016) at the National Portrait Gallery, London.