Contemporary Black artist Trenton Doyle Hancock responds to the provocative images of twentieth-century Jewish painter Philip Guston
 
A defining figure of the New York School, Philip Guston (1913–1980) frequently alluded to racism, antisemitism, and fascism in his work. In the 1960s and 1970s, Guston, who often grappled with his Jewish identity and assimilation into American culture, controversially portrayed himself as a cartoonish Klansman to deflate the power of the Klan’s hateful symbolism, as well as to acknowledge his own complicity in white supremacy.
 
Trenton Doyle Hancock (b. 1974) is a leading contemporary artist who has looked to Guston as a source of inspiration for nearly three decades. In 2014 Hancock created a series of drawings that interweaves Guston’s biography, Hancock’s family history, and the history of lynching in Hancock’s hometown, and introduces Hancock’s avatar, a Black superhero named Torpedoboy who confronts Guston’s hooded alter ego.

Rebecca Shaykin
Jewish Museum
Hardcover, 160 pages
ISBN 9780300278200