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Artists›Leon Golub

Leon Golub

1922–2004

Chicago, IL, USA

Painting

Representation

None documented

Institutional Exhibitions

Works in Collection

116

Assets Indexed

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Publications Referenced

90%

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Selected Institutional Exhibitions

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New Humans: Memories of the Future

New Museum

2026

About

Why this artist matters now

Leon Golub painted large-scale figural works in acrylic that confront violence, power, and the human body with unflinching directness. Working primarily in Chicago from the 1950s onward, he developed a distinctive approach using erasure, scraping, and gestural mark-making to create surfaces that register both physicality and psychological intensity. His monumental canvases depict interrogation scenes, mercenaries, and fragmented anatomies that refuse aestheticization, embedding political urgency into the formal language of Abstract Expressionism.

Source: Corbett Dempsey · Trust score: 100% · Updated 1mo ago

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Institutional

Museum Collections

The Metropolitan Museum of Art Cleveland Museum of Art Art Institute of Chicago Tate New Museum

Canonical record

Artworks (66)

Condemned

2002 · Paint stick, india ink, and acrylic on white card

25.4 × 20.4 cm (10 × 8 1/16 in.)

Art Institute of Chicago

Why Me! from Exit 99

1999 · Screenprint from a portfolio of seven screenprints and one etching and aquatint

composition: 27 1/2 x 20 3/4" (69.8 x 52.7cm); sheet: 29 15/16 x 22 1/16" (76 x 56cm)

Museum of Modern Art

Interrogation from 10: Artist as Catalyst

1992 · One from a portfolio of ten screenprints

composition (irreg.): 17 1/16 x 21 15/16" (43.3 x 55.7 cm); sheet: 25 9/16 x 26" (65 x 66 cm)

Sheet: 65.7 x 66 cm (25 7/8 x 26 in.); Image: 43 x 55.7 cm (16 15/16 x 21 15/16 in.)

Cleveland Museum of Art

White Squad

1987 · Lithograph on paper

composition: 29 5/8 x 40 5/8" (75.2 x 103.2 cm); sheet: 29 5/8 x 41 1/2" (75.2 x 105.4 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

WattsOS

White Squad

1987 · Color lithograph

Sheet: 29 3/4 × 41 7/8 in. (75.5 × 106.3 cm)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

WattsOS

Untitled from The Atelier Project

1986

Museum of Modern Art

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Institutional

Representation & Collections

In collection

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

In collection

Cleveland Museum of Art

In collection

Art Institute of Chicago

In collection

Tate

In collection

New Museum

In collection

New Museum

Background

Education

University of Chicago

Visual Arts

School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Visual Arts

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Exhibitions and timeline

Exhibition New Humans: Memories of the Future

2026

Exhibition New Humans: Memories of the Future New Museum

2026