“Although more interest in the idioms of figurative folk art, Ryggen would occasionally dabble in abstractionism to express the ineffable qualities of violence. In a later example, “Blood in the Grass” (1966), the artist settles into yet another political row — this time aimed at President Lyndon B. Johnson who had recently been photographed lifting his dog up by the ears. As angry as she was with the president, Ryggen was angrier at how his minor controversy overshadowed the Vietnam War. Still a loyal to the Communist cause, Ryggen depicts LBJ as an American cowboy coated in neon pink dye. (Surely a dig at American machismo.) To the president’s left is an abstract regiment of grassy green fiber sprouting from the tapestry, divided by ravines of bloody red pigment and a white fence. As a cumulative image, “Blood in the Grass” is a striking symbol of American ignorance during the Vietnam War. As with all her work, here, Ryggen is vigilant in the face of war, using art as an accountant of injustice.“ https://hyperallergic.com/425180/the-anti-fascist-tapestries-of-hannah-ryggen-modern-art-oxford/
Hannah Ryggen, “Blood in the Grass” (1966) (image courtesy KODE-Art Museums of Bergen, photo by KODE/Dag Fosse,
