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Artist Jean-Baptiste Maitre (1978)   

Title Donald Rumsfeld with Chevron Pattern  

Year 2014   

Material spray paint, inkjet, matte medium, paper, cardboard, polystyrene    

About the work

This work depicts a young Donald Rumsfeld in 1954. Years later, as US defence secretary, he was partly responsible for the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, in which many civilians were killed. Rumsfeld has received numerous military honours. The chevron pattern from the title of this work refers to the arrow shapes on the insignia soldiers wear on their uniforms. The artist poses a question: is your view of the young Rumsfeld influenced by his later involvement in the Iraq War?   

About the artist

Maitre connects the present with images from our collective memory by combining different materials. After beginning his training at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1998, he also studied archaeology at the Sorbonne. From 2009 to 2010, he was artist-in-residence at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam. Maitre works in both Paris and Amsterdam. 

Read more about the artist.

In the collection 

Acquired in 2015. De Nederlandsche Bank has two works by Maitre in its collection. Since the 1990s, De Nederlandsche Bank has acquired a number of works by former artists-in-residence at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, including Gijs Frieling, Thierry Oussou and Daniëlle van Ark.   

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