Kill F o r Peace: Am erican Artists A gainst the Vietnam W ar .
By Matthew Israel. University of Texas Press, 2013.
The Vietnam War is one of the most controversial and widely discussed periods of
American history. The participation of the US Army and the strategies the American
government chose to pursue are still openly criticized by the world public. The domestic
response to the US involvement in Vietnam, however, started to grow negative almost from the
very beginning and resulted in frustration and heavy disapproval of American actions in Asia.
Artists were one of the groups to protest most vigorously. This is the subject that Matthew
Israel’s Kill For Peace: American Artists Against the Vietnam War brings to our attention. The
author’s study is an energetic endeavor to uncover the reactions and actions of artists during
the US partaking in the war and to reveal the interrelationship between the Vietnam War and
art.
Israel provides an impressive overview of paintings, installations, sculptures, and
photographic images created during the time of the Vietnam conflict and articulates “what
antiwar art was in the United States during the Vietnam War" (2). His book is an exhaustive
analysis of the works of leading artists of that time, including Rudolf Baranik, Jay Belloli, Judith
Bernstein, Leon Golub, Jasper Johns, Edward Kienholz, Claes Oldenburg, Violet Ray, Martha
Rosier, Peter Saul, Nancy Spero, Carol Summers, and many others. The author’s brilliant
account encapsulates historical aspects of the Vietnam era as well as a detailed examination
of the artworks of the period. This combination makes Israel’s book both unique and lays the
groundwork for the accuracy of his investigation.
Throughout the book, from the introduction through its eight chapters to the conclusion,
the author creates a clear line of reasoning, tracing the development of the artists' protest and
rigorously historicizing it. The first chapter contextualizes the war in US history, providing the
essential background to understanding it. Israel’s analysis transitions smoothly to the next
chapter where he discusses the emergence of important protest groups such as Artists and
Writers Protest (AWP), Artists’ Protest Committee (APC), and Art Workers’ Coalition (AWC)
and gives an overview of the first protests that started in 1965. He aptly labels the m as “extraaesthetic actions” (23) and argues that they not only became the central actions of protest in
the initial stage but also remained a prominent form of action later on. The artists and writers
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