Leon Golub Powerplay: The Political Portraits

The American artist Leon Golub (1922-2004) is best known for his iconic history paintings of mercenaries, interrogations, torture and riots of the 1980s and early '90s. He increasingly explored the effects of power upon the body through facial expression, gesture and pose, investing his dramatic pictorial scenes with psychological tension and depth through the visual exchange between depicted characters and the viewer. Golub's source material always derived from media representations: of how the look of power is mediated through the camera lens, a process which is inflected by the interests of elite cultures, whether political, military or social. It was during the 1970s that the 'look of power' became dominant in his series of political portraits of heads of state, corporate, military and religious leaders. Golub produced over 100 roughly life-size portraits, often depicting an individual at various stages of his public office - all visual narratives of arrogance and venality traced across the visage of powerful men. Read more