Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00011086Head of a Screaming Man (recto)
About the Artwork
Born in rural Pennsylvania, trained in Italy, and based in London for the entirety of his career, Benjamin West exemplifies the transatlantic character of colonial-era American art. In England, his success as a history painter propelled him to the position of court painter by 1772. West’s study of the head of a screaming man, believed to be done in preparation for a now-lost painting commissioned by King George III (1738–1820), was likely not drawn from life. It was modeled on the ideas of French artist Charles LeBrun (1619–1690), whose lectures on depicting the passions of the soul were surely known to the academic West. Working out the facial expression of terror, West emphasized the musculature of the man’s neck, jawline, and brow with thick, emphatic strokes. He employed light brown paper as a midtone and rubbed shadows beneath the man’s chin and flying hair. The purpose of the drawing is not entirely understood. In Pharaoh and His Host Lost in the Red Sea, an oil sketch West likely executed prior to Cleveland’s drawing, the dramatic twist of the pharaoh’s screaming head strongly resembles that in Cleveland’s sheet. However, a drawing in Boston believed to depict the lost painting indicates a composition quite different from West’s oil sketch, leaving the role of this crayon study in the creation of the final painting uncertain.
Provenance
?-1967: (Sven Gahlin [1934-2017], London, sold to The Cleveland Museum of Art.) 1967-: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH.
Exhibition history
Year in Review: 1967. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 29-December 31, 1967). The Birth and Flowering of British Romantic Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 1-July 22, 1990). American Drawings from the Permanent Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 19-July 12, 1998). Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000); The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY (May 23-August 19, 2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (October 14, 2001-January 6, 2002).
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Benjamin West (American, born The Thirteen Colonies, 1738–1820)
- Date
- 1792
- Medium
- black crayon
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 32.3 x 40.7 cm (12 11/16 x 16 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- Drawing
- Department
- Drawings
- Credit line
- Dudley P. Allen Fund
- Accession no.
- 1967.130.a
More by Benjamin West in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00011086
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