Lot 68: William Harington "Rabbit of Hearts" Acrylic on Multiple Boards

William C. Harrington (b. June 20, 1942) was a prolific painter, sculptor, and collage artist grounded in the Chicago Imagist movement whose work profoundly depicts the contradictions, ironies and sometimes horror of our modern life. His use of shape, color, culture and popular themes makes him a contemporary of renown artists like Jim Nutt, Jim Dine, Jean Tinguely, Claes Oldenburg, Peter Blake, and Larry Rivers. Harrington’s personal experiences as a leader of Combat Artists Team VII in Vietnam, where he recorded the seering images of war in the jungles and rice fields of the region, bring a brutal honesty and emotional truth to his art. After graduating with an MFA in sculpture Harrington’s intention was to return to Chicago to build his promising career, but instead found himself drafted into the US Army. In 1967, the United States’ involvement in South East Asia was reaching its zenith, and in that same year Harrington was accepted into the Vietnam Combat Artists Program where he led Combat Artist Team VII, group of six artists, assigned to depict all aspects of war in Vietnam through paint, ink and photography. Many of those important images are housed in the National Archives and National Museum of the US Army Center of Military History in Washington, DC.

36x32x3

Acrylic on Multiple Boards

1967

Perfect