William Gropper WPA Artist Watercolor in Grisaille, circa 1932- “Uprooted”

William Gropper was a painter and cartoonist who, with caricature style, focused on social concerns. Gropper was born on December 3, 1897, in New York. William Gropper was a student of Robert Henri and George Bellows at the Ferrer School from 1912–15. During the 1930s, working as a part of the Federal Arts Project, he produced some of the most gripping social protest works of the Great Depression. His subjects included industrial strikes, especially in coal mining and steel-production centers. Gropper did much illustration-cartoon work for the New York Tribune newspaper, Vanity Fair magazine and the politically left-wing publication, New Masses. Some of his other pieces focused on the hypocrisy of government figures, especially members of the United States Senate. Gropper died on January 6, 1977, in Manhasset.