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William Gropper
Charcoal Drawing "Waiting" Pensive Woman Americana WPA Artist

About the Item

14x11.5 image size , 22.5x17.5 backing size The New-York born artist William Gropper was a painter and cartoonist who, with caricature style, focused on social concerns, and was actively engaged in support of the organized labor movement throughout his career. This original drawing is done in the iconic style of the artist's oeuvre. Surface: Paper (this is being sold unframed) Country: United States Born to Harry and Jenny Gropper in 1897, William was raised in New York City's Lower East Side. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Romania and Ukraine, and young William grew up in relative poverty, watching his family struggle to achieve that sought-after American dream. His father, a bright and college-educated man, was unable to find employment that worthy of his intellect. His mother, meanwhile, worked as a seamstress from home. Coupled with the devastating loss of an aunt to the infamous Triangle Factory fire of 1911, significant childhood factors created the foundation that led to Gropper’s exploration of the American experience. Early on, Gropper displayed an extraordinary, natural skill for art. By 1912, he was already studying under the instruction of George Bellows and Robert Henri at the Ferrer School in Greenwich Village. During his time at school, Gropper was also awarded a prestigious scholarship to study at the National Academy of Design. However, he refused to fit into convention and was swiftly expelled from the Academy. After his expulsion, Gropper returned home to help financially by assisting his mother and taking a shop position. However, he didn't abandon art academia and soon presented a portfolio to the New York School of Fine Art which earned him a scholarship for study. Gropper obtained his first significant job as a cartoonist for the New York Tribune in 1917. While working as a staff cartoonist for the Tribune, he also contributed drawings to publications like Vanity Fair, New Masses, The Nation, and Freiheit. His interest in the welfare of the American worker, class inequality, and social injustice was central in his work. After publishing the graphic novel Alley Oop in 1930, Gropper's illustration career extended well into the decade. However, he was never exempt from controversy, and his 1935 Vanity Fair cartoon; prompted anger from the Japanese government. As an involved labor organizer and Social Realist activist, Gropper continued to bring attention to his radical reputation with visits to the Soviet Union and Poland. However, his concern with European politics and U.S. social causes didn't slow down his artistic career, and by the late 1930s, he had produced significant murals for American cities like Washington D.C. His 1938 mural Construction of a Dam was commissioned for the Department of the Interior and represents the Social-Realism style that depicts experiences of the worker and everyday societal life. Measuring at a staggering 27ft by 87ft, the piece portrays muscular, robust American laborers scaling rocky hillsides, building infrastructure, and operating heavy machinery. The mural feels undeniably American with golden scenery, denim blues, and steely gray colors. Gropper fits perfectly into Social-Realism because the style exhibits an illustrative flair with strong lines and simple, bold hues. The inspiration for Construction of a Dam sprang from his 1937 travels to the poverty-stricken Dust Bowl area. The trip was sponsored by a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, and his drawings of the Grand Coulee and Boulder Dams were featured in The Nation. These drawings eventually led to the creation of the acclaimed mural. Gropper continued to produce more Social-Realist oil paintings and to frequent Europe for inspiration. Fascinated by American Folklore, he channeled that interest into his 1946 painting William Gropper's Americana: It's Folklore. The piece features a U.S. map packed with folklore characters, labor, violence, railroads, mining, and other historical symbols and events. While seemingly uncontroversial by today's standards, the piece caught the attention of the famous Senator Joseph McCarthy who was chairman of the Senate Committee of Government Operations. McCarthy believed the piece was inspired by Communist philosophy, and Gropper was called before the Subcommittee on Investigations in 1953; however, he refused to testify. Gropper landed exhibitions at London's Piccadilly Gallery and at La Galerie del Frente Nacional des Artes in Mexico City. A contemporary of Ben Shahn and Abraham Rattner. Turning his attention to decorative arts, he produced stained glass windows for Illinois' Temple Har Zion in 1966. Up until his death in 1977, the American master remained active in the Social-Realism style and committed to labor and injustice issues. Today, William Gropper is a highly recognized artist with permanent collections at the Smithsonian Institution, The National Gallery of Art, Princeton University, and the William J. Clinton Presidential Library.
  • Creator:
    William Gropper (1897 - 1977, American)
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 22.5 in (57.15 cm)Width: 17.5 in (44.45 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
    minor wear, mounted to backing, some waviness to backing and tear to edge of backing 14x11.5 image size , 22.5x17.5 backing size.
  • Gallery Location:
    Surfside, FL
  • Reference Number:
    Seller: 1851stDibs: LU38213678952
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In 1929, Gross experimented with printmaking, and created an important group of 15 linocuts and lithographs of landscapes, New York City streets and parks, women in interiors, the circus, and vaudeville. The entire suite is now in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Gross returned to the medium of printmaking in the 1960s, and produced approximately 200 works in the medium over the next two decades. For more than sixty years Chaim Gross's art has expressed optimistic, affirming themes, Judaica, balancing acrobats, cyclists, trapeze artists and mothers and children convey joyfulness, modernism, exuberance, love, and intimacy. This aspect of his work remained consistent with his Jewish Hasidic heritage, which teaches that only in his childlike happiness is man nearest to God. In March 1932 Gross had his first solo exhibition at Gallery 144 in New York City. 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He also did some important Hebrew medals. In the 1950s Gross began to make more bronze sculptures alongside his wood and stone pieces, and in 1957 and 1959 he traveled to Rome to work with famed bronze foundries including the Nicci foundry. At the end of the decade Gross was working primarily in bronze which allowed him to create open forms, large-scale works and of course, multiple casts. Gross's large-scale bronze The Family, donated to New York City in 1991 in honor of Mayor Ed Koch, and installed at the Bleecker Street Park at 11th street, is now a fixture of Greenwich Village. In 1959, a survey of Gross's sculpture in wood, stone, and bronze was featured in the exhibit Four American Expressionists curated by Lloyd Goodrich at the Whitney Museum of American Art, with work by Abraham Rattner, Doris Caesar, and Karl Knaths. In 1976, a selection from Gross's important collection of historic African sculpture, formed since the late 1930s, was exhibited at the Worcester Art Museum in the show The Sculptor's Eye: The African Art Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Chaim Gross. Gross was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member, and became a full Academician in 1981. In 1984, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, with Jacob Lawrence and Lukas Foss. In the fall of 1991, Allen Ginsberg gave an important tribute to Gross at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which is published in their Proceedings. In 1994, Forum Gallery, which now represents the Chaim Gross estate, held a memorial exhibition featuring a sixty-year survey of Gross's work.In March 1932 Gross had his first solo exhibition at Gallery 144 in New York City. For a short time they represented Gross, as well as his friends Milton Avery, Moses Soyer, Ahron Ben-Shmuel and others. 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Under these programs Gross taught and demonstrated art, made sculptures that were placed in schools and public colleges, made work for Federal buildings including the Federal Trade Commission Building, and for the France Overseas and Finnish Buildings at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Gross was also recognized during these years with a silver medal at the Exposition universelle de 1937 in Paris, and in 1942, with a purchase prize at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's "Artists for Victory" exhibition for his wood sculpture of famed circus performer Lillian Leitzel. In 1949 Gross sketched Chaim Weizmann, President of Israel, at several functions in New York City where Weizmann was speaking, Gross completed the bust in bronze later that year. Gross returned to Israel for three months in 1951 (the second of many trips there in the postwar years) to paint a series of 40 watercolors of life in various cities. This series was exhibited at the Jewish Museum (Manhattan) in 1953. In the 1950s Gross began to make more bronze sculptures alongside his wood and stone pieces, and in 1957 and 1959 he traveled to Rome to work with famed bronze foundries including the Nicci foundry. At the end of the decade Gross was working primarily in bronze which allowed him to create open forms, large-scale works and of course, multiple casts. Gross's large-scale bronze The Family, donated to New York City in 1991 in honor of Mayor Ed Koch, and installed at the Bleecker Street Park at 11th street, is now a fixture of Greenwich Village. In 1959, a survey of Gross's sculpture in wood, stone, and bronze was featured in the exhibit Four American Expressionists curated by Lloyd Goodrich at the Whitney Museum of American Art, with work by Abraham Rattner, Doris Caesar, and Karl Knaths. In 1976, a selection from Gross's important collection of historic African sculpture, formed since the late 1930s, was exhibited at the Worcester Art Museum in the show The Sculptor's Eye: The African Art Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Chaim Gross. Gross was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member, and became a full Academician in 1981. In 1984, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, with Jacob Lawrence and Lukas Foss. In the fall of 1991, Allen Ginsberg gave an important tribute to Gross at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which is published in their Proceedings. In 1994, Forum Gallery, which now represents the Chaim Gross estate, held a memorial exhibition featuring a sixty-year survey of Gross's work. Gross was a professor of printmaking and sculpture at both the Educational Alliance and the New School for Social Research in New York City, as well as at the Brooklyn Museum Art School, the MoMA art school, the Art Student's League and the New Art School (which Gross ran briefly with Alexander Dobkin...
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    Located in New York, NY
    John Heliker Self Portrait, 1991 Charcoal Pencil on Paper (with original Kraushaar Galleries label verso) Signed on the front bears the original KRAUSHAAR GALLERIES label on the verso on the frame Vintage metal frame included Self portrait done in charcoal pencil by distinguished American artist John Heliker. Hand signed on the front This work is framed - bears the label of the renowned KRAUSHAAR GALLERIES on the verso. Image size: 13 inches by 10 inches; Framed: 18 1/2 inches by 14 1/2 inches About John Heliker from The New York Times Obituary, 2000 (Roberta Smith) John Heliker, a painter and teacher who was a fixture of the New York art world for nearly seven decades, died on Tuesday at the Sonojee Estate, a health center in Bar Harbor, Me. He was 91 and had lived in New York during most of his career, spending summers on Cranberry Island...
    Category

    Late 20th Century Modern Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

    Materials

    Charcoal, Carbon Pencil, Paper

  • Nude On The Train - Drawing by Mino Maccari - 1960s
    By Mino Maccari
    Located in Roma, IT
    Nude On The Train is a charcoal Drawing on creamy colored paper realized in 1960 by Mino Maccari in the mid-20th century. Hand-signed on the lower in pencil. Good condition on yell...
    Category

    Mid-20th Century Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

    Materials

    Paper, Charcoal

  • Man at Work - Original Drawing by Louis Emile Minet - 1899
    By Emile-Louis Minet
    Located in Roma, IT
    Man at work is a drawing in pencil and charcoal realized by the French painter Emile-Louis Minet in 1899. Hand signed and dated on the right margin. Good conditions. Louis Minet ...
    Category

    1890s Modern Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

    Materials

    Charcoal, Pencil

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