Images of skulls
"He felt he would love to have some to draw from and never intended to put them in his paintings. But years later he was so deeply moved by the Vietnam War, he put them into his work and broke new territory. The skull is the most charged image in Western culture."
Skulls were not the only objects that Burkhardt placed in his paintings. His last series, called Black Rain and dealing with feelings of his own mortality as well as atrocities in the guerrilla war in El Salvador, used bits of charred wood installed in them, forming crosses along with a sculpted head of Christ he had found in Mexico.
"Personally he was far from being a bleak man," said Rutberg. "In fact, he could not have been more cheery and often he would paint celebrations, lovers, nudes. But he said he had to paint war as well."
Burkhardt once explained his work this way: "The need to lend a voice to suffering is a condition of truth."
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