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Vietnamese Head

Leon Golub American
1970
Not on view
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.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Vietnamese Head
  • Artist: Leon Golub (American, Chicago, Illinois 1922–2004 New York)
  • Date: 1970
  • Medium:

    Acrylic on linen

  • Dimensions: 24 × 18 in. (61 × 45.7 cm)
  • Classification: Paintings
  • Credit Line: Gift of Dan Miller, in loving memory of the artist, 2016
  • Object Number: 2016.529.1
  • Rights and Reproduction: Art © The Nancy Spero and Leon Golub Foundation for the Arts/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
  • Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art

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Gigantomachy II, Leon Golub American, Acrylic on linen
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White Squad, Leon Golub American, Color lithograph
White Squad
Multiple artists/makers
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Red Roses Sonata, Alma Thomas American, Acrylic on canvas
Red Roses Sonata
Alma Thomas
1972
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Andrea Motley Crabtree, the first
Henry Taylor
2017
Untitled, Ed Clark American, Acrylic on canvas
Untitled
Ed Clark
1966

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