The image is not available for reuse here; the Whitney and the artist's rightsholders are cordially challenged to let this Chicago Judith join the visible record.

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Chicago figurative painting · The banquet and tent

Judith and Holofernes

Robert Barnes born 1934

1958

Gallery label

A large early Chicago painting carries Judith into postwar American figuration, well outside the Old Master sequence that usually ends the story.

Look closely

The Whitney describes a richly colored interior with reclining figures and dense decorative detail. The text record preserves that evidence while directing viewers to the museum for the image itself.

Why this Judith matters

The work was acquired by the Whitney only three years after it was made. That institutional history makes postwar Judith a collected American subject, not a belated quotation.

Sources for this record:Whitney Museum of American Art record ↗

“A large early Chicago painting carries Judith into postwar American figuration, well outside the Old Master sequence that usually ends the story.”

Narrative index

Primary catalogue placement: the banquet and tent, Judith 12:10–20. The index organizes comparison; it does not claim that every visual detail comes from those verses or that the work touches only one episode.

Text and evidence

The passage behind the image

See the verses in parallel public-domain translations, then return to ask what the artist has omitted, moved, or invented.

Read Judith 12:10–20 →

Image information

Copyright held by the artist or estate

The image is not available for reuse here; the Whitney and the artist's rightsholders are cordially challenged to let this Chicago Judith join the visible record.

Image reuse: All rights reserved