Wednesday, November 2, 2022 – ARTIST AND SOCIAL REALIST CARTOONIST
FROM THE ARCHIVES
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2022
THE 823rd EDITION
WILLIAM GROPPER
Cartoonist and Social Realist
SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM
Cartoonist and social realist painter who studied with Robert Henri and George Bellows. Often compared with Honoré Daumier, Gropper was a satirical cartoonist for the New York Tribune. He contributed to Vanity Fair, as well as to more radical publications such as the Masses and the Liberator, and to two Communist publications—Freiheit and the Daily Worker.
Joan Stahl American Artists in Photographic Portraits from the Peter A. Juley & Son Collection (Washington, D.C. and Mineola, New York: National Museum of American Art and Dover Publications, Inc., 1995)
William Gropper’s parents were Jewish immigrants who worked in the sweatshops of New York City’s garment district. Their dignity in the face of hardship influenced their oldest son, who wrote that “I’m from the old school, defending the underdog.” (Klaidman, “William Gropper, 79, Painter and Radical Cartoonist Dies,” The Washington Post, January 9, 1977). As a teenager Gropper attended an experimental socialist school and took art courses with Robert Henri and George Bellows. Their respect for working people inspired Gropper to express his radical politics in cartoons. After winning several prizes for his drawings he took a job with the New York Tribune, but his bosses discovered his contributions to left-wing magazines and fired him. In 1937, Gropper had his first show and the New Yorker magazine described him as “one of the most accomplished, as well as one of the most significant artists of our generation.” During the “Red scare” of the postwar years, conservatives grew suspicious of his images lambasting the rich and powerful. Gropper was asked to appear before the McCarthy Senate permanent investigations subcommittee, where he took the Fifth Amendment. He was branded a Communist and saw several of his gallery shows cancelled. This experience did nothing to stop the artist from making satirical images about war, prejudice, greed, and exploitation into his late seventies. (Steinberg, intro. to Sorini, William Gropper Etchings, 1998)
- William Gropper, Construction of the Dam (study for mural, the Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C.), 1938, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 1965.18.11A-C
- William Gropper proposed this mural for the Department of the Interior building in Washington, D.C. He based the image on visits to the Grand Coulée Dam on the Columbia River and the Davis Dam on the Colorado River. Gropper organized the composition in three parts to accommodate a second-floor lobby wall divided by two marble pilasters. Each scene represents different phases of construction to show the drama, danger, and massive scale of the dam projects overseen by the government.
In the central panel a worker stands inside a section of conduit suspended above the canyon. He signals for his coworkers to direct the crane over the dam. Gropper emphasized the unity of workers who clearly rely on one another to get the job done. The men protect each other from injury as they shape the American landscape, invigorate the nation’s economy, and provide electrification across the country. The stylized clouds and jagged mountains reflect the artist’s effort to make the scene easily readable from a distance. In the finished mural, Gropper made subtle changes to his proposal, including a red handkerchief hanging from the back pocket of one of the workers. Gropper was a Communist, and this subtle statement of his sympathies was a subversive act for an artist whose government-commissioned work was supposed to reach broad audiences. The change generated no objections, and after Gropper installed the mural a Washington Post critic commended him, writing that his “design has unity and is appropriate in scale and color to the space for which it was planned.” (Graeme, “Gropper Mural Graces Interior Building,” The Washington Post, March 19, 1939)
William Gropper, Suburban Post in Winter (mural study, Freeport New York Post Office), ca. 1936-1937, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the General Services Administration, 1974.28.369
William Gropper, Untitled (three men on horses; blue and orange), n.d., color lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of David Schiffer, 1993.3.6, © 1953, William Gropper
William Gropper, Untitled (three men on horses; green and brown), n.d., color lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of David Schiffer, 1993.3.5, © 1953, William Gropper
William Gropper, Untitled (man with pink tie at desk), n.d., color lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of David Schiffer, 1993.3.4, © 1953, William Gropper
William Gropper, Untitled (Band and dancer in spotlight), n.d., color lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of David Schiffer, 1992.113.1, © 1953, William Gropper
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