Golub, Leon (1922- ), American painter, whose monumental paintings of people in conflict address social and political issues. Golub generally borrows images of figures from newspapers or magazines, dramatically positioning them against a background of a single color. A typical scene pictures one or more men in the act of threatening violence toward another man. Expressive brushstrokes within the boundaries of the figures both describe and obscure their identities. Golub’s later paintings tend toward greater abstraction but never lose the essential drama of bodies in conflict.

Over the years, Golub has addressed a variety of ancient and contemporary struggles. He began painting figures based on ancient Greek and Roman sculptures in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when he lived in Paris, France. By the late 1960s his images had begun to express contemporary themes by representing specific armed struggles in Algeria and Vietnam. From the late 1970s through the 1980s Golub’s work addressed human rights abuses and the terrorist dictatorships in South and Central American countries. Typical of this period is Interrogation (1983, Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois), in which the brutality of the scene is reinforced by the scarred appearance of the painting’s surface, which the artist scraped down and repainted several times. Golub next turned to domestic issues, depicting urban street violence in the United States.

Golub’s determination to paint the human figure during the 1950s and 1960s, a time when abstract painting dominated artistic expression, may have kept him from attaining early fame. Nevertheless, since the 1950s his work has been included in a number of major exhibitions throughout the world. When the attention of the New York art world turned to sociopolitical concerns in the 1980s, Golub’s work began to receive wider recognition.

Born in Chicago, Leon Golub completed a bachelor’s degree at the University of Chicago in 1942 before serving in the United States Army from 1943 to 1946. He returned to the University of Chicago to earn his Bachelor of Fine Arts (B.F.A.) degree in 1949 and received an M.F.A. degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1950. He married American artist Nancy Spero in 1951, and moved with her to Paris, where they lived from 1954 to 1969. On their return the couple settled in New York City. Golub taught at Rutgers University in New Jersey from 1970 through the late 1980s.