Existing comment:
Judith Bernstein
born Newark, NJ 1942
A Soldier's Christmas
1967
oil, fabric, steel wool, electric lights, and mixed media on canvas
Collection of Paul and Karen McCarthy
While studying painting at the Yale School of Art, Bernstein became fascinated by the graffiti she found in men's bathrooms. With draft calls then increasing, young men often expressed fear and anger about the war in Vietnam. She channeled their darkly mocking tone and taboo sexual imagery in her art. The scrawled message in A Soldier's Christmas captions an image of a woman's spread legs adorned with an American flag and Christmas lights. (The lights blink when illuminated but are too fragile to be left on today.) Bernstein's profane imagery and language convey the force of her opposition: "I wanted to make the ugliest paintings I could. I wanted them to be as ugly and horrifying as the war was." |