Skip Ribbon Commands
Skip to main content
Seattle Art Museum (SAM)
menu

White Squad II

White Squad II

1982

Leon Golub

American, 1922 - 2004

Leon Golub painted psychologically charged figurative works since the 1950s and continued unabated until his death. The dry, scratchy application of paint was in keeping with his brutal subject matter, which evolved from pictures of Vietnam-era political leaders to scenes from 1980s uprisings and military actions. Often derived from newspaper pictures, Golub's monumental paintings sought to recapture the visceral shock and moral outrage of the original acts.


Acrylic on canvas
119 7/16 × 172in. (303.3 × 436.9cm)
Virginia Wright Fund, Camille McLean, Contemporary Art Council, Anne Gerber and anonymous donors
85.291
Provenance: Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York; Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, purchased with funds from Virginia Wright Fund, Camille McLean, Contemporary Art Council, Anne Gerber and Anonymous Donors, November 4, 1985
location
Not currently on view

Resources

Exhibition HistoryNew York, New York, Susan Caldwell Gallery, "Leon Golub", October 9 - November 6, 1982

Kunstmuseum Luzern, Luzern, Switzerland, "Leon Golub, New Works", 1983-1986, February 5 - March 22, 1987. Circuit: Kunstverein, Hamburg, West Germany, April 4 - May 17, 1987

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, "Recent Modern Acquisitions", August 27 - October 18, 1987.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, "Other Figures", May 25 - July 16, 1989

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, "Unpretty Pictures (Reinstallation of Galleries 411,412, and 413)", June 26, 1997-January 30, 1998.

Buffalo, New York, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, "Leon Golub: Paintings 1950-2000", January 19-April 15, 2001.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, "Contemporary Art from SAM Collection", March 8, 2014- August 17, 2014



Published ReferencesRatcliff, Carter. "Expressionism Today: An Artists Symposium," Art In America,
December, 1982. p.64.

Gumpert, Lynn and Ned Rifkin. "Golub", New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York:1984. p.56.

Catalogue to the Exhibition: Leon Golub @ Kunstmuseum, Luzern, 1987. p.16

"Selected Works." Seattle, WA: Seattle Art Museum, 1991, p. 131

Ishikawa, Chiyo et al. "Seattle Art Museum Downtown." Seattle, WA: Seattle Art Museum, 2007, illus. p. 37

Farr, Sheila. "SAM's Expanding Universe" The Seattle Times, 29 April 2007. p.1.



***

Websites containing "White Squad II" image:
http://www.drawger.com/robd/?start_date=1167627600&end_date=1170306000&archives=true

http://www.bluffton.edu/~humanities/art/20c/contempart/contempart.html

http://www.zackbent.com/zack/blog/archive/2007_05_01_zbent_archive.html

http://www.artnet.com/usernet/awc/awc_thumbnail.asp?AID=139848&GID=139848&CID=17224&page=3&recs=6&MaxPages=4&works_of_art=1


Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.

Learn more about Equity at SAM