Description:

Rolland Harve Golden (American/Louisiana, b. 1931), "Beyond Endurance", 1970, acrylic on canvas, signed and dated lower center, titled en verso, 36 in. x 33 in., framed Exh.: Rolland Golden, "Soviet Touring Exhibit, Nov. 1976 - Feb. 1977" and illustrated in the accompanying catalogue as no. 19. Note: In the early 1960s, opposition to the Vietnam War began to grow, inspiring protests, boycotts, and strikes, and artists often used their canvases to comment. Rolland Golden joined those protesters in 1970 with his Old South series. In a 1978 interview, he stated, "I was struck by the similarities between our Civil War of the 1860s and the Viet Nam War of the 1960s. I felt I had to make a statement about war and its futility. In my show the emphasis was not on brilliant charges, but on the sufferings of the soldiers." Golden painted a variety of subject matter throughout his career, including works depicting the rural South, New England, Manhattan, France, and Moscow. Some of the works he considered the most important were the paintings that resulted from his passionate political beliefs. Although he was criticized by some for commercializing the controversy of the war, Golden felt it was important for artists to use their art to make political statements about which they felt passionately. He pointed out in a 1985 interview for American Artist magazine that this was something other artists, such as Francisco Goya, Honoré Daumier, and Diego Rivera, had been doing for centuries. The current lot, "Beyond Endurance," draws parallels both obvious and nuances between the Civil War and the Vietnam War, while also portraying Golden's empathy for the soldiers in both wars. Depicting the suffering of a crouched Confederate cavalryman, whose face is obscured but whose bloody hands and tattered uniform can be clearly seen, Golden creates a sense of hopelessness and distress. However, loss of hope is not the focus of the piece or the Old South series as a whole. Rather, as Paul Fabry writes, "It is a metaphor of the futility of war and the triumph of peace." In 1976, Golden was invited by the Institute of Soviet-American Relations to exhibit a one man show of fifty-one paintings in Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, and Odessa. The group consisted of a variety of subject matter, and "Beyond Endurance" was included in the show. Golden's works were well received by the Soviet audience, who appreciated the realistic style, views of everyday life, and historical analogies. Ref: Kemp John R. Rolland Golden: The Journeys of a Southern Artist. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing, 2005.

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April 23, 2017 11:00 AM CDT
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