Located in Los Angeles, CA
Moonlight Shanties, c. 1940s, oil on canvas, 24 x 18 inches, signed lower right, signed and titled verso
About the Painting
In Moonlight Shanties, Joachim depicts a lower-class neighborhood sitting along-side an elevated road or railway which crowds out the small nearby houses and structures. Joachim’s use of an expressionist palette and gestural brushstrokes together with the isolated figures obscured in the shadows, create a feeling of unease, isolation and even loneliness. From the 1920s through 1940s, American artists commonly employed expressionist conventions in their social realist works which portrayed the gritty side of urban America, especially the communities of the city-dwelling poor. Expressionist styles were considered appropriate for bridging the gap between the modernist idea of art-for-art’s-sake and the narrative qualities demanded by the dual crises of the Great Depression and World War II. Moonlight Shanties successfully uses these expressionist methods to portray a neighborhood and its people who appear to be literally and figuratively “on the edge.”
About the Artist
Paul Lamar Joachim...
Category
American Modern 1940s Art