January 1st, 2005
MCGill/Queens University Press
Image- Imagination
Petra Halkes
Gottfried Helnwein’s American Prayer: A Fable in Pixels and Paint.
One theme returns often: "The Child," which was also the title of Helnwein’s first major museum solo show in in North America (San Francisco Fine Arts Museum, 2004). Photographing and painting children, sometimes adored, more often traumatized or injured, threatened or witnessing violence, the artist appears possessed by the suffering that childhood’s particular vulnerability can engender.
Note 13:
See: http://www.helnweincomic.homestead.com/index3.html

This website is one of many Helnwein sites, in which the unruly works of this prolific artist are somewhat categorized. Born in 1948 in Vienna, Helnwein’s career spans more than three decades. He lives and works in Los Angeles and has a home base in Ireland as well.His art ranges from the macabre to the sublime. Figures, dead or alive, predominate in large groups and smaller encounters. There are many singular figures and portraits of celebrities and others, as well as self portraits. There are also land- and cityscapes, magazine and CD covers, installations and set designs.One theme returns often: "The Child," which was also the title of Helnwein’s first major museum solo show in in North America (San Francisco Fine Arts Museum, 2004).Photographing and painting children, sometimes adored, more often traumatized or injured, threatened or witnessing violence, the artist appears possessed by the suffering that childhood’s particular vulnerability can engender.

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Helnwein starts many of his paintings, including American Prayer, with an inkjet print of a digital image which he composes from different photographs of various times and places.

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American Prayer is a cautionary tale; the closed eyelids of the praying Pinocchio (and of many other children in Helnwein’s oeuvre, see Fig. 5) suggest that if the aggressive grasp of a profit-driven image-culture is not curtailed, sight will have to be sacrificed in order to save creative imagination.

Captions for Petra Halkes, "Gottfried Helnwein’s American Prayer: A Fable in Pixels and Paint."

Figure 1. Gottfried Helnwein, American Prayer (2000) oil and acrylic on canvas 213 cm x 187 cm..Fig. 2. Anonymous prayer picture. c. 1950 , 10 cm x 5.5 cm. Printed in Italy..Fig. 3. Andy Warhol, The Shadow (Myth Series)1981,.Andy Warhol, Mickey Mouse, (Myths Series) 1981..Fig. 4 Gottfried Helnwein, Andy Warhol, 1983, 90 cm x 66 cm, Silver Print Ludwig Museum, Cologne..Figure 5 Gottfried Helnwein, Head of Child, 2000, 300 cm x 218 cm, oil and acrylic on canvas, Collection of the artist..Figure 6. Gottfried Helnwein, The Death of Pinocchio, 1988, oil and pastel on paper, 49 cm x 62 cm.