At Work: Prints from the Great Depression at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts

The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Thursday, March 28, 2024


At Work: Prints from the Great Depression at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts
Thomas Hart Benton, Island Hay, 1945, lithograph, Art © Benton Testamentary Trusts/UMB Bank Trustee/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.



SALT LAKE CITY, UT.- The Utah Museum of Fine Arts and the American West Center at the University of Utah present At Work: Prints from the Great Depression, an exhibition exploring the role of work and art during one of America’s most trying eras. At Work prompts contemporary questions about the place of labor in our lives today, a theme that is further explored through a series of companion programs and projects.

The At Work exhibition was organized through the collaborative efforts of AWC director Matthew Basso, University of Utah Department of History graduate student Emily Johnson, and UMFA curator Donna Poulton. At Work will be on view at the UMFA from February 10 to May 6, 2012.

“Remembered as one of the most devastating periods in the history of the United States, unemployment and the Great Depression are linked in people’s minds for good reason,” says Dr. Basso. “At its height, the Depression left more than 20 percent of Americans out of work, and iconic images of Dust Bowl migrants and soup kitchens dominate our picture of 1930s America. But as the exhibition At Work reveals, Depression-era artists were equally interested in depicting people at work.”

At Work features more than 60 prints by Thomas Hart Benton, Herschel Levit, Claire Mahl and dozens of other printmakers, many of whom were among the 5,000 visual artists employed by the federal government in the 1930s. Their prints provide a complex portrait of the place of work in the social politics of the era. They illustrate, for example, that many white-collar workers were forced to take blue-collar jobs after the collapse, and that government programs designed to support family breadwinners often left women with limited opportunity for paid work.

Printmaking became a particularly popular artistic mode of expression for Depression-era artists. Inherently democratic, the medium enabled printmakers to easily create and cheaply distribute copies of their work. Many artists celebrated the working class through their prints, creating dignified images of farmers, railroad workers, seamstresses, and street vendors.

At Work features some similarly heroic images of the working class, with prints depicting muscular men building dams, drilling oil or working in factories. The exhibition draws parallels between the hard labor of these men and images of women working at home, serving as seamstresses or cooking meals. A less heroic portrait of the working class is also present in At Work, as some artists portrayed hardened, stoop-shouldered victims of the economic crisis.

The prints featured in At Work are drawn from the collection of Marcia and Ambassador John Price.










Today's News

February 12, 2012

Exhibition in Bonn presents three of the most influential artists of the 1980s

"Exploring Art of the Ancient Americas" exhibition features artwork from Mexico to Peru

Important survey at Museum of Fine Arts in Houston reexamines career of leading Color Field painter

Dallas Museum of Art exhibition celebrates 100 years of giving with seminal works from its collection

First solo exhibition in New York by Swiss artist Zimoun at bitforms gallery in New York

Brooklyn Museum's exhibition of Egyptian treasures travels to Omaha's Joslyn Art Museum

At Work: Prints from the Great Depression at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts

Five Moments: Exhibition presents the trajectories in the architecture of the Tel Aviv Museum

Tibor de Nagy Gallery in New York features the work of Sarah McEneaney and Dwight Ripley

Seattle's Museum of Flight welcomes Charles Simonyi's Soyuz TMA-14 spacecraft

Magical Visions Multiple Directions by African American Artists on view at the University of Delaware

Kunsthaus Bregenz exhibition: Can a journal be translated into an exhibition space?

David Kordansky Gallery in Los Angeles presents a solo exhibition by Pietro Roccasalva

Over 70 international and national galleries to exhibit at the fourth annual Dallas Art Fair

Three person exhibition featuring sculptures and installations at Edward Cella Art + Architecture

Everson announces exhibition of American Impressionist master Robert Henri

Guns and glass: Celebrate Tiffany family design legacy at Nevada Museum of Art

VIP 2.0 creates active online marketplace, 73,000 register for seven day event

Corcoran Gallery of Art presents Tim Hetherington: Sleeping Soldiers

An Architect's Influence: Annual Invitational on view at the Demuth Museum




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful