Much of French public opinion changed rapidly after news arrived that the German army had been badly defeated at Stalingrad in the USSR.  Many saw this as the beginning of the end for the Nazis and thought twice before collaborating with the occupiers and persecuting Jews.  On the mural the word Stalingrad appears in Cyrillic in large gold letters mimicking a Soviet poster.  In the middle a Russian soldier calls his troops to action.  Images of Marx and Lenin form an ironic pattern suggesting that the painting was done at the time of the fall of the Soviet system.  The four groups of images represent, from left to right, Russian soldiers from the battle of Stalingrad, the artist’s family, France and the United States.

# 5.  Battle of Stalingrad 1943    1994    8’ X 24‘    Paint on Canvas

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