Swell Guys

Price on request. Available by inquiry — contact michael@michaelrosenthalart.com or call 415-552-1010.

Leon Golub (American, 1922–2004)
Swell Guys, 1992
Lithograph/screenprint
19.5 × 15 in.
Edition 42/95

Golub's work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Smithsonian, and Tate. Retrospectives at the Met (2018) and Tate (2015). Represented by Hauser & Wirth. He received the Hiroshima Art Prize and the Skowhegan Medal for Painting.

Two figures, side by side, grinning. Golub built his career painting mercenaries, interrogators, and the machinery of political violence. By 1992 his figures had loosened — still menacing, but with a dark humor. The title says it all. Printed in a combined lithograph and screenprint process that gives the image both the softness of stone printing and the flat punch of screen ink.