Hungry Ghosts VII
1964
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
lithograph (aluminum) in blue-black on white Arches paper
Dimensions
sheet: 46 x 35.5 cm (18 1/8 x 14 in.)
Classification
Portfolio
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Dorothy J. and Benjamin B. Smith
Accession Number
1984.34.370.8
Art Historical Context
**Hungry Ghosts VII** (1964) is a lithograph by American artist Lee Mullican (1919–1978), printed in deep blue-black ink on luxurious white Arches paper. Measuring 46 x 35. cm, this intimate work belongs to a portfolio series, evoking the restless spirits of Buddhist lore known as "hungry ghosts"—tormented beings driven by insatiable cravings. Mullican, a pioneering printmaker associated with the experimental Dynaton group, infused his abstractions with mystical and biomorphic energy, blending Western modernism with spiritual themes during the vibrant printmaking revival of the 1960s. The use...
About the Artist
Lee Mullican
Lee Mullican was an American painter whose visionary, intensely patterned canvases placed him at the intersection of Abstract Expressionism, Surrealism, and non-Western spiritual traditions. Born in 1919 in Chickasha, Oklahoma, he studied at the Kansas City Art Institute and later at the University of Oklahoma before serving as a cartographer in the United States Army during World War II. That exp...