Untitled (Eisenhower says peace...)
Howard’s untitled text-based painting is filled to capacity with two excerpts from contemporary newspaper headlines. Roughly two-thirds of the work is filled with a headline summarizing a speech President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered on November 19, 1953. The remaining bottom third of the composition is given over to a headline concerning the famous kidnapping and murder of a young boy in Kansas City, Missouri. The stark contrast between the black text and the off-white ground lends the painting a graphic intensity that reinforces the painting’s powerful language, while specific words are further punctuated by the presence of hands pointing at them with index fingers. The painting numbers among hundreds of hand-painted signs featuring religious exhortations, political denunciations, and autobiographical details that Howard created and positioned throughout his yard at his home in Fulton, Missouri.
Artwork Details
- Title: Untitled (Eisenhower says peace...)
- Artist: Jesse Howard (American, 1885–1983)
- Date: 1953–60
- Medium: Paint on commercial fiberboard (Masonite)
- Dimensions: 20 1/8 × 48 1/4 in. (51.1 × 122.6 cm)
- Classification: Paintings
- Credit Line: Gift of Kohler Foundation Inc., 2017
- Object Number: 2017.171.1
- Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art
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