Superman Versus the Toilet Duck
Superman Versus the Toilet Duck
Artist
Peter Saul
(born 1934)
Date1963
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions63 x 78 3/4 in. (160 x 200 cm)
ClassificationsPainting
Credit LineCrystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, 2012.497
Signedl.r.: Saul / '63
verso: [signed and titled] 63
Accession number
2012.497
On View
Not on viewLabel TextThis is certainly not a straightforward depiction of Superman. Here the hero has red hair, four eyes, and a displaced nose. His right leg drapes over a square structure, a toilet pull-chain hangs from his boot, and the head of a duck emerges from a toilet bowl. Though remarkably unheroic, the figure still reads as Superman even as Peter Saul changes the “S” on the iconic crest to a dollar sign – a tongue-in-cheek reference to Superman’s less talked about superpower: his marketability.
En esta pintura, Superman es pelirrojo, tiene cuatro ojos y la nariz desplazada. Su pierna descansa sobre una estructura, una cadena de baño le cuelga de la bota y la cabeza de un pato emerge de un inodoro. Al presentar un Superman intencionalmente oscuro, curiosamente antihéroe, pero aún identificable, Peter Saul subraya que el héroe es un ícono verdaderamente poderoso de la cultura popular. Para resaltar esto, Saul pintó el signo del dólar en el escudo del Hombre de Acero, una audaz referencia al superpoder de Superman que menos se discute: su comerciabilidad.
Inscribedrecto, l.c.: KWAK
