F-111

F-111: Contemporary History Painting

In 1964, Rosenquist began gathering photographs and information about the F-111 fighter-bomber then in development for the United States military. From these materials he devised the concept for a painting that would incorporate imagery of the warplane, creating extensive collage studies and beginning work on the massive painting in his Broome Street Studio in SoHo, lower Manhattan. Built to the specific measurements of the front room of the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York, the work measured ten feet high by eighty-six feet long when complete and was presented at the Castelli Gallery in spring 1965. Covering all four walls, the painting invaded the visitors’ peripheral vision, with images of consumer products superimposed over the length of the plane depicted from nose to tail. Using the visual language of advertising, Rosenquist created a work that was anything but mundane and pedestrian.

Rosenquist was initially inspired to paint the fighter-bomber after seeing an old, abandoned B-36 plane at a Six Flags amusement park in Texas, and in response to media coverage of the U.S. involvement in Vietnam in the early 1960s. Just as he perceived the amusement park as a "false natural environment," Rosenquist suggested that consumer wealth at that time produced a false sense of security based on the war industry. Civic unrest over the war in Vietnam was beginning to foment in the United States, with small protests on college campuses as early as 1963, and larger-scale demonstrations taking shape in New York, Berkeley, Minneapolis, Washington, D.C., and campuses across America by 1965. This brash, large-scale work was in many ways prescient of the pronounced civil unrest to come, embodying an outsize visual statement that would match the critical voices that were then building against the war. With all the bravura of advertising, Rosenquist created a history painting that crystallized contemporary American life.

—Text by Sarah C. Bancroft, and adapted from Bancroft, "Modern Issues and Current Events" in James Rosenquist: A Retrospective, eds. Walter Hopps and Sarah Bancroft, exh. cat., Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York, 2003); and Bancroft, "James Rosenquist: The Intimate Collage of Monumental Painting" in James Rosenquist: Four Decades: 1970-2010, exh. cat., Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac (Paris, 2016).

Installation view. F-111 (1964-65), Leo Castelli Gallery, New York, 1965. (Colorized version, based on an original b/w photograph.)

Explore

“History is remembered
by its art, not its war
machines.”

—James Rosenquist

Source Collages

Preparatory Study for F-111, 1964. Mixed media on photographic reproduction and paper. 13 3/4" x 11 1/2" (34.9 x 29.2 cm). Museum of Modern Art, New York, Promised gift of Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis [PG281.2009.6].

Source for F-111, 1964. Collage and mixed media on paper. 9 3/4" x 11 13/16" (24.8 x 30.0 cm). Museum of Modern Art, New York, Promised gift of Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis [PG281.2009.12].

Source and Preparatory Study for F-111, 1964. Photographic reproduction and mixed media. 9 1/4" x 21 3/4" (23.5 x 55.2 cm). Museum of Modern Art, New York, Promised gift of Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis [PG281.2009.1].

Source for F-111 and Orange Field, 1964. Magazine clipping on paper. 3 13/16" x 5 3/4" (9.7 x 14.6 cm). Museum of Modern Art, New York, Promised gift of Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis [PG281.2009.3].

Source for F-111, 1964. Mixed media collage. 5 5/16" x 10 7/8" (13.5 x 27.6 cm). Museum of Modern Art, New York, Promised gift of Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis [PG281.2009.8].

Source for F-111, 1964. Photographic reproduction and mixed media. 4 1/4" x 22 3/4" (10.8 x 57.8 cm). Museum of Modern Art, New York, Promised gift of Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis [PG281.2009.11].

Source for F-111, 1964. Magazine clipping, unidentified clipping, and mixed media on paper. 10" x 11 1/2" (25.4 x 29.2 cm). Museum of Modern Art, New York, Promised gift of Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis [PG281.2009.2].

Source and Preparatory Sketch for F-111, 1964. Magazine clipping and mixed media on paper. 12" x 11 3/4" (30.5 x 29.9 cm). Museum of Modern Art, New York, Promised gift of Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis [PG281.2009.13].

Source for F-111, 1964. Photographic reproduction and mixed media on paper. 13 3/4" x 14 3/4" (34.9 x 37.5 cm). Museum of Modern Art, New York, Promised gift of Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis [PG281.2009.15].

Source for F-111, 1964. Magazine clipping and mixed media on paper. 10 7/16" x 5 13/16" (26.5 x 14.8 cm). Museum of Modern Art, New York, Promised gift of Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis [PG281.2009.14].

Source for F-111, Spaghetti, Spaghetti (Gray), and The Friction Disappears, 1964. Photographs and mixed media on cardboard. 15" x 11 3/4" (38.1 x 29.9 cm). Museum of Modern Art, New York, Promised gift of Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis [PG281.2009.7].

Preparatory Study for F-111, 1964. Mixed media on tracing paper and paper. 10 3/4" x 14 1/4" (27.3 x 36.2 cm). Museum of Modern Art, New York, Promised gift of Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis [PG281.2009.10].

Preparatory Study for F-111, 1964. Aluminum and mixed media on paper. 8 1/2" x 32" (21.6 x 81.3 cm) . Museum of Modern Art, New York, Promised gift of Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis [PG281.2009.5].

Preparatory Study for F-111, 1964. Mixed media on paper. 11 3/4" x 12" (29.8 x 30.5 cm). Museum of Modern Art, New York, Promised gift of Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis [PG281.2009.9].

Preparatory Study for F-111, 1964. Mixed media on magazine clipping. 10 1/4" x 10 3/8" (26.0 x 26.4 cm). Museum of Modern Art, New York, Promised gift of Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis [PG281.2009.4].

Installation Views

Installation view: F-111 (1964–65) at Leo Castelli Gallery, New York, 1965.

Installation view: F-111 (1964–65) at Leo Castelli Gallery, New York City, 1965.

Installation view: F-111 (1964–65) at The Jewish Museum, New York City, 1965.

Installation view: F-111 (1964–65) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, 1968.

Installation of F-111 (1964–65) in progress at Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden, 1965.

James Rosenquist (in plaid shirt) during installation of F-111 (1964–65) at Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden, 1965.

Installation view: James Rosenquist with F-111 (1964–65) at the Venice Biennale, 1978.

Installation view: F-111 (1964–65), MoMA, NY, March 2017.

Artwork © James Rosenquist/Licensed by VAGA, New York. Photo © Estate of James Rosenquist, courtesy of Estate of James Rosenquist and The Museum of Modern Art. All rights reserved. Photographer: Glenn Steigelman.

Installation view: F-111 (1964–65), MoMA, NY, March 2017.

Historic Photos

Allen Jones and George Cohen (left to right) with F-111 (1964–65) in Rosenquist's Broome Street Studio, NYC, ca. 1964-65.

Brooke Hayward with F-111 (1964–65) in Rosenquist's Broome Street Studio, NYC, ca. 1964-65.

Bruce Hooten and Mel Geary (left to right) with F-111 (1964–65) in Rosenquist's Broome Street Studio, NYC, ca. 1964-65.

Charles Henri Ford with F-111 (1964–65) in Rosenquist's Broome Street Studio, NYC, ca. 1964-65.

Gerald Laing with F-111 (1964–65) in Rosenquist's Broome Street Studio, NYC, ca. 1964-65.

Henry Geldzahler (left to right) with F-111 (1964–65) in Rosenquist's Broome Street Studio, NYC, ca. 1964-65.

Ileana Sonnabend with F-111 (1964–65) in Rosenquist's Broome Street Studio, NYC, ca. 1964-65.

James Rosenquist and Tony Curtis (left to right) with F-111 (1964–65) in Rosenquist's Broome Street Studio, NYC, ca. 1964-65.

James Rosenquist with F-111 (1964–65) in Rosenquist's Broome Street Studio, NYC, ca. 1964-65.

John Chamberlain with F-111 (1964–65) in Rosenquist's Broome Street Studio, NYC, ca. 1964-65.

Larry Poons with F-111 (1964–65) in Rosenquist's Broome Street Studio, NYC, ca. 1964-65.

Max Kozloff with F-111 (1964–65) in Rosenquist's Broome Street Studio, NYC, ca. 1964-65.

Michelangelo Pistoletto, Steve Paxton, Otto Hahn, Leo Castelli, Robert Rauschenberg, Ileana Sonnabend, James Rosenquist, and Alan Solomon (left to right) with F-111 (1964–65) in Rosenquist's Broome Street Studio, NYC, ca. 1964-65.

Otto Hahn, Alan Solomon, Robert Rauschenberg, Leo Castelli, Steven Paxton, Ileana Sonnabend, Michelangelo Pistoletto (left to right) with F-111 (1964–65) in Rosenquist's Broome Street Studio, NYC, ca. 1964-65.

Richard Feigen, and Carmen and David Kreeger (left to right) with F-111 (1964–65) in Rosenquist's Broome Street Studio, NYC, ca. 1964-65.

Richard Feigen and Tony Curtis (left to right) with F-111 (1964–65) in Rosenquist's Broome Street Studio, NYC, ca. 1964-65.

Richard Smith, Allen Power, Bob Gordon, Joe Tilson, Ray Donarski (left to right) with F-111 (1964–65) in Rosenquist's Broome Street Studio, NYC, ca. 1964-65.

Sir Alex Gregory Hood with F-111 (1964–65) in Rosenquist's Broome Street Studio, NYC, ca. 1964-65.

Thalia and Larry Poons with F-111 (1964–65) in Rosenquist's Broome Street Studio, NYC, ca. 1964-65.

Yvonne Mulder with F-111 (1964–65) in Rosenquist's Broome Street Studio, NYC, ca. 1964-65.

Polaroid photograph of F-111 sources arranged on studio floor, ca. 1964-65.

Polaroid photograph of F-111 (1964–65) in Rosenquist's Broome Street Studio, NYC, ca. 1964-65.

“Flying through the flak of
consumer society to question the
collusion between the Vietnam
death machine, consumerism, the
media, and advertising.”

—James Rosenquist