Jon McNaughton

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Jon McNaughton (born around 1965 in Utah ) is an American painter . McNaughton, one of the best known contemporary American painters, is highly controversial as an artist because of the pronounced political and religious tendencies of much of his work.

life and work

McNaughton, who came from the state of Utah, began to paint in the late 1980s. Since the early 2010s, his work has met with a strong response from the American public and the media, with the result that he is currently one of the best-known contemporary US artists. His work is particularly popular among the American right-wing camp , i. H. the “ (values-) conservative ”, tend to vote republican , “Ur-American” values ​​adhering to parts of the US population, who are mainly in the interior (“ Red States ”). The political “left” and the established art criticism, on the other hand, take a largely reserved to negative attitude towards McNaughton's paintings.

The background of the strongly polarized assessment of McNaughton's oeuvre outlined above is both the subjects of his pictures and the artistic execution: As a rule, he chooses religious and (current) political motifs, which he uses in a completely unencrypted, naturalistic visual language the canvas bans. So z. B. - in an idyllic and transfigured form - Jesus Christ , American soldiers, the founding fathers , the "simple man from the street", the (idyllically inflated) life and the values ​​of the "real America" ​​as well as US President Barack Obama , who in McNaughton's images unequivocally figure as a threat that seeks to destroy the “ideal world” of the Americans and to replace it with an “evil”, non-religious and “socialist” new order. It is almost a leitmotif of McNaughton to portray Obama as an opponent of the constitution of the United States , which he alternately tramples, tears up or burns.

The political-ideological starting point of McNaughton and the messages he sends to the viewer of his pictures are usually so clear that they leave almost no room for interpretation, but are based on a simple division of the world and its appearances into "black" and “White” or “right” and “wrong” results. The same applies in particular to the craftsmanship of his pictures, which are based on a strong suggestive impulse in their syntax, coloring, light and shadow setting, and in similar means of expression. For this reason, the Financial Times Deutschland frankly classified him in an article in 2012 as a “propaganda painter”, while the art critic Jerry Saltz of New York Magazine sees “poor academic, non-original, realism” as a characteristic of McNaughton's painting. The comedian Stephen Colbert compared the typical McNaughton ensemble scenes with the picture books of Where's Waldo? -Series and added the mocking hint that "the thing you are looking for here [instead of the figure of the striped sweater and hat wearing Waldo] is the tiniest shade of subtlety".

The uncompromising thrust of McNaughton's pictures has made him a veritable hero in the camp of the US right-wing in their enduring struggle against the Democrats and the Obama administration, and in the years since around 2010 it has led to high sales of his pictures: This is what the conservative talk is supposed to be like - Radio presenter Sean Hannity , for example, paid a six-figure sum for one of the three originals of McNaughton's picture One Nation Under Socialism . In addition to the originals of his work, McNaughton also sells prints of his more popular paintings, which he sells through his website and which constitute the bulk of his income.

McNaughton's highly acclaimed images include The Forgotten Man , Wake Up America , One Nation Under Socialism (Obama burns the US Constitution), One Nation under God (Jesus Christ hands the Constitution to the American people)

McNaughton is married with eight children.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Controversial Painter Depicts Obama with Burning Constitution
  2. ↑ Comedy Central: The Colbert Report, May 9, 2012.
personal data
SURNAME McNaughton, Jon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American painter
DATE OF BIRTH around 1965
PLACE OF BIRTH Utah