The Individualist (Howard Roark) is a photograph of Gary Cooper taken when he was shooting the King Vidor-directed film The Fountainhead. The film was based on the book of the same name by Ayn Rand, a North American author known for her libertarian views.

This novel tells the story of architect Howard Roark, whose character is loosely based on Frank Lloyd Wright. The climax of the story is a trial in which the hero justifies blowing up a building whose promoters had disfigured the design he had secretly drawn up for another architect. His speech to the jury is a defense of intellectual property and, through it, an exaltation of individualism.

In addition to a framed photograph of the American actor, the piece features a plumb line suspended in the exhibition space, its menacing shape pointing to Cooper's face. Both Roark and Cooper are targeted, the latter, the emblematic incarnation of the cowboy, having had a more than ambiguous attitude during the dark years of McCarthyism.