David Levinthal
Untitled [Barracks]

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Images(2)

Artist David Levinthal (American, born 1949)American, born 1949

CultureAmerican

Titles

Untitled [Barracks]
from the series Mein Kampf

Date1994

PlaceUnited States

MediumDye diffusion transfer print

Dimensionsimage: 23 5/8 × 19 11/16 in. (60 × 50 cm)
sheet: 26 7/16 × 22 1/16 in. (67.1 × 56 cm)

Credit LineGift of Michael Levinthal

Object number99.687

Not on view

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Department

Photography

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

DescriptionDavid Levinthal has
created a series of more than 50 photographs, including the one shown here,
titled Mein Kampf, in which he staged
toy figures of Nazi soldiers, Hitler, and Holocaust camp victims in various
narrative tableaux. Mein Kampf, which
means ‘my struggle,’ was the title of Hitler’s 1925 autobiography, and embodies
the artist’s own struggle to represent his indirect experience of the Holocaust
as a Jewish man who grew up in postwar America. Levinthal felt compelled to
begin the series when he discovered a brand-new Hitler figure in an Austrian
toy store, made from a mold produced in the 1930s.
ProvenanceMichael Levinthal; given to MFAH, 1999.
Exhibition History"Ruptures and Continuities: Photography Made after 1960 from the MFAH Collection," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Brown Foundation Galleries, February 21 - May 9, 2010.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

Signed in black, recto, lower right: "David Levinthal 1994 3/5"

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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