ARTHI 6C Lecture 11: Lecture 11 1930s Social Realism and the New Deal
1930s
October 24, 1929 - Wall Street Crash
Largest stock market crash in history
§
○
Global Economic Fallout = Great Depression
○
Traumatic effects worldwide: unemployment, poverty, the rise of
authoritarian regimes and socialism
○
Weaker nation states invaded by Expanding powers ---> WWII
○
Franklin D. Roosevelt elected in 1932 = The New Deal
○
Adolf Hitler rises to power in 1933
○
•
The New Deal
Series of social programs, public work projects, financial reforms and
regulations
○
Enacted under FDR btwn 1933 and 1935 in direct response to the Great
Depression
○
Alphabet Soup organizations: CCC, CWA, FSA, SSA, WPA
FSA: Farm Security Administration
Sent out documentary photographers to Midwest and South
to show the public that there was a need for social programs
□
§
WPA: Works Progress Administration
Employing skilled laborers to build pools, roads, dams, etc.
□
Also employed artists for very large artistic projects
□
Hoover Dam
One of the largest WPA projects
®
□
Santa Barbara Bowl
Local WPA project built in 1936
®
□
Coit Tower, San Francisco
Artistic WPA project
®
Art-deco building built in 1933
®
1934 - murals created by faculty and students form
California School of Fine Arts
®
□
§
○
Programs sought to support farmers, the unemployed, youth and the
elderly
○
Created constraints and safeguards on the banking industry and economy
○
Majorly impacted artists and artistic production
○
•
Social Realism
Has roots in Russian traditions -- Marxist ideologies about society striving
for equality
○
Aims to be a faithful and objective rendering of life -- a rejection of
abstraction
○
The primary theme of Socialist Realism is the building of socialism and a
classless society
○
Treats the worker/laboring class as the hero
○
Encourages a certain heightening and idealizing of heroes and events to
mold the consciousness of the masses
○
•
What is a mural?
A grouping of paintings made for a specific location: they are site-specific,
they cannot move
○
Painted directly onto the wall; frescos are paintings done in pigments on
wet plaster,, so that the color penetrates the plaster and becomes fixed
(permanent) as it dries
○
Artists must work quickly before the plaster dries
○
Mural cycle: murals with multiple images
○
•
Diego Rivera
Detroit Industry Murals 1923-1933
27 fresco panels at the Detroit Institute of Arts
§
Painted here because it was the American center of the working
class and industry
§
Depicted assembly lines, auto industry, etc.
§
Intentional depiction of racial diversity
§
○
Man, Controller of the Universe 1934
Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin shown
§
Diego Rivera was a communist
§
Shows a common man in the center as a political statement
Rise of the common man□
§
Rockefeller was the patron for this piece
He didn’t like that Lenin and Marx were in the painting□
Asked Rivera to change it, which he refused□
Mural ended up getting destroyed and removed□
Rivera then recreated it in Mexico□
§
○
•
David Siqueiros
One of the three great Mexican muralists
○
Portrait of Mexico Today 1932
Mural at the Santa Barbara Art Museum
§
Was painted for a patron in Pacific Palisades, was removed from the
home and flown to Santa Barbara in the 70s
§
Shows the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution
Everyday Mexican people and how the war impacted them□
§
Critique of American capitalism and intervention
§
○
•
Frida Kahlo
Painter and wife of muralist Diego Rivera
○
Frieda and Diego Rivera 1931
Depicts highly public and volatile relationship
§
○
Self Portrait on the Borderline Between Mexico and the United States 1932
Frida standing on a platform
§
Mexico = organic, landscape, temple, happiness, clean
§
America = industrial, smoky, dirty, unhappy
§
○
What I Saw in the Water 1938
Depicts the most intimate experiences of Frida's life
§
Symbolism of the trials she endured
§
○
Proto-feminist
A term often applied to a philosophical tradition that anticipated
modern feminism, and to people espousing that tradition of a
commitment to equality between the genders, but who lived in an
era when the concept of feminism was still undefined
§
○
•
Jacob Lawrence
The Migration Series 1940
Panel 1 Caption: "During the World War, there was a great
migration North by Southern Negroes"
§
Negritude movement: reclaiming of blackness and Americanism
§
Several panels
§
Panel 5 Caption: "The Negroes were given free passage on the
railroads which was paid back by the Northern industry…"
§
Panel 6 Caption: "The trains were packed continually with
migrants."
§
○
•
American Regionalism
An American movement rooted in social realism that includes paintings,
lithographs, illustrations which depict realistic/everyday scenes of small
town America and its farms and laborers
○
The American Heartland: the middle of the country (the Midwest),
previously artistically overlooked in favor of the coasts
○
Direct response to the great Depression
○
Very popular as a kind of true Americanness
○
Considered traditional and conservative for its focus on white Americans
○
Cracks in this surface however: Grant Wood
○
•
John Steuart Curry
Baptism in Kansas
Midwest town
§
All white people
§
Christian religious practice of baptism is at the center
§
○
•
Louise Emerson Ronnebeck
American regionalist
○
The Fertile Land Remembers 1938
Two white people going west
§
Pioneering hope in Manifest Destiny
§
Rural life of the farm depicted
§
○
•
Grant Wood
Born in small town Iowa
○
Educated at Art Institute of Chicago
○
Spent time at Handicraft Guild (ran by all women)
○
Did impressionistic work in Paris
○
Came back to Iowa and completely rejected all of his training
○
Revolt Against the City
A book he wrote stating that art buyers weren't interested in French
culture or art
§
Said American artists turned to what they saw in their hometowns
§
There was no allure in the cities
"cities are the ulcers of the body politic" -- Thomas Jefferson
in support of rural America
□
§
Tension between the city and the country in American Regionalism
§
○
American Gothic 1930
One of the most famous American paintings
§
People thought the painting was satire of rural small-town life
Critical of rural America□
§
Read this painting as an extension of Grant Wood himself
He carried himself as a farm boy but he absolutely hated
farming
□
Adapting a persona to protect his identity as a gay man□
§
Such an iconic scene that people recreate it
Gordon Parks' American Gothic 1942
Depicting the black experience of it
®
□
Howard Kottler Look Alikes 1972
Depiction of the American Gothic
®
Porcelain ceramic plates with paintings on them
®
□
§
○
Was also a sculptor
Corn Cob Chandelier for Iowa Corn Room 1925
Phallic symbol, pointing to homoeroticism□
§
○
Saturday Night Bath 1939
Lithograph
§
Deemed pornographic
§
Motif of homoeroticism and identity politics as well as depictions of
the male physique
Grant Wood was a gay man□
Often told that he could not paint women well□
§
○
Dinner for Threshers 1933
Untraditional ideas of masculinity and femininity
§
Men were brushing their hair and washing their faces
§
Men had "sunkissed" skin which was heavily criticized
§
This whole painting was criticized as Wood paying too close
attention to the men
§
○
Spring in Town 1941
Erotic subject matter of men
§
Crossing lines in categories of gender
§
Rejecting gender expectations
Man is gardening□
Flipping the gender roles□
§
○
•
Lesbian Farmers, Rural Midwest
Unknown photographer
○
Never really think of lesbians in rural areas, but more in urban cities
○
Nonnormative bodies
○
•
Dorothea Lange
Destitute pea pickers in California/Migrant mother
Mother of seven children
§
Concern about economic and living conditions of the working class
individual
§
Photographic depiction of David Siqueiros Proletarian Mother 1931
painting
§
○
•
Arthur Rothstein
Photographer
○
Gees Bend, Alabama
Very poor encampment of former slaves
§
Quilts
Made of found scraps and whatever resources were available□
No uniformity or coherence□
Made communally□
Connected to the idea of abstraction□
§
○
•
Lecture 11: 1930s Social Realism and the New Deal
Thursday, May 10, 2018
11:00 AM
1930s
October 24, 1929 - Wall Street Crash
Largest stock market crash in history
§
○
Global Economic Fallout = Great Depression
○
Traumatic effects worldwide: unemployment, poverty, the rise of
authoritarian regimes and socialism
○
Weaker nation states invaded by Expanding powers ---> WWII
○
Franklin D. Roosevelt elected in 1932 = The New Deal
○
Adolf Hitler rises to power in 1933
○
•
The New Deal
Series of social programs, public work projects, financial reforms and
regulations
○
Enacted under FDR btwn 1933 and 1935 in direct response to the Great
Depression
○
Alphabet Soup organizations: CCC, CWA, FSA, SSA, WPA
FSA: Farm Security Administration
Sent out documentary photographers to Midwest and South
to show the public that there was a need for social programs
□
§
WPA: Works Progress Administration
Employing skilled laborers to build pools, roads, dams, etc.□
Also employed artists for very large artistic projects□
Hoover Dam
One of the largest WPA projects
®
□
Santa Barbara Bowl
Local WPA project built in 1936
®
□
Coit Tower, San Francisco
Artistic WPA project
®
Art-deco building built in 1933
®
1934 - murals created by faculty and students form
California School of Fine Arts
®
□
§
○
Programs sought to support farmers, the unemployed, youth and the
elderly
○
Created constraints and safeguards on the banking industry and economy
○
Majorly impacted artists and artistic production
○
•
Social Realism
Has roots in Russian traditions -- Marxist ideologies about society striving
for equality
○
Aims to be a faithful and objective rendering of life -- a rejection of
abstraction
○
The primary theme of Socialist Realism is the building of socialism and a
classless society
○
Treats the worker/laboring class as the hero
○
Encourages a certain heightening and idealizing of heroes and events to
mold the consciousness of the masses
○
•
What is a mural?
A grouping of paintings made for a specific location: they are site-specific,
they cannot move
○
Painted directly onto the wall; frescos are paintings done in pigments on
wet plaster,, so that the color penetrates the plaster and becomes fixed
(permanent) as it dries
○
Artists must work quickly before the plaster dries
○
Mural cycle: murals with multiple images
○
•
Diego Rivera
Detroit Industry Murals 1923-1933
27 fresco panels at the Detroit Institute of Arts
§
Painted here because it was the American center of the working
class and industry
§
Depicted assembly lines, auto industry, etc.
§
Intentional depiction of racial diversity
§
○
Man, Controller of the Universe 1934
Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin shown
§
Diego Rivera was a communist
§
Shows a common man in the center as a political statement
Rise of the common man□
§
Rockefeller was the patron for this piece
He didn’t like that Lenin and Marx were in the painting□
Asked Rivera to change it, which he refused□
Mural ended up getting destroyed and removed□
Rivera then recreated it in Mexico□
§
○
•
David Siqueiros
One of the three great Mexican muralists
○
Portrait of Mexico Today 1932
Mural at the Santa Barbara Art Museum
§
Was painted for a patron in Pacific Palisades, was removed from the
home and flown to Santa Barbara in the 70s
§
Shows the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution
Everyday Mexican people and how the war impacted them□
§
Critique of American capitalism and intervention
§
○
•
Frida Kahlo
Painter and wife of muralist Diego Rivera
○
Frieda and Diego Rivera 1931
Depicts highly public and volatile relationship
§
○
Self Portrait on the Borderline Between Mexico and the United States 1932
Frida standing on a platform
§
Mexico = organic, landscape, temple, happiness, clean
§
America = industrial, smoky, dirty, unhappy
§
○
What I Saw in the Water 1938
Depicts the most intimate experiences of Frida's life
§
Symbolism of the trials she endured
§
○
Proto-feminist
A term often applied to a philosophical tradition that anticipated
modern feminism, and to people espousing that tradition of a
commitment to equality between the genders, but who lived in an
era when the concept of feminism was still undefined
§
○
•
Jacob Lawrence
The Migration Series 1940
Panel 1 Caption: "During the World War, there was a great
migration North by Southern Negroes"
§
Negritude movement: reclaiming of blackness and Americanism
§
Several panels
§
Panel 5 Caption: "The Negroes were given free passage on the
railroads which was paid back by the Northern industry…"
§
Panel 6 Caption: "The trains were packed continually with
migrants."
§
○
•
American Regionalism
An American movement rooted in social realism that includes paintings,
lithographs, illustrations which depict realistic/everyday scenes of small
town America and its farms and laborers
○
The American Heartland: the middle of the country (the Midwest),
previously artistically overlooked in favor of the coasts
○
Direct response to the great Depression
○
Very popular as a kind of true Americanness
○
Considered traditional and conservative for its focus on white Americans
○
Cracks in this surface however: Grant Wood
○
•
John Steuart Curry
Baptism in Kansas
Midwest town
§
All white people
§
Christian religious practice of baptism is at the center
§
○
•
Louise Emerson Ronnebeck
American regionalist
○
The Fertile Land Remembers 1938
Two white people going west
§
Pioneering hope in Manifest Destiny
§
Rural life of the farm depicted
§
○
•
Grant Wood
Born in small town Iowa
○
Educated at Art Institute of Chicago
○
Spent time at Handicraft Guild (ran by all women)
○
Did impressionistic work in Paris
○
Came back to Iowa and completely rejected all of his training
○
Revolt Against the City
A book he wrote stating that art buyers weren't interested in French
culture or art
§
Said American artists turned to what they saw in their hometowns
§
There was no allure in the cities
"cities are the ulcers of the body politic" -- Thomas Jefferson
in support of rural America
□
§
Tension between the city and the country in American Regionalism
§
○
American Gothic 1930
One of the most famous American paintings
§
People thought the painting was satire of rural small-town life
Critical of rural America□
§
Read this painting as an extension of Grant Wood himself
He carried himself as a farm boy but he absolutely hated
farming
□
Adapting a persona to protect his identity as a gay man□
§
Such an iconic scene that people recreate it
Gordon Parks' American Gothic 1942
Depicting the black experience of it
®
□
Howard Kottler Look Alikes 1972
Depiction of the American Gothic
®
Porcelain ceramic plates with paintings on them
®
□
§
○
Was also a sculptor
Corn Cob Chandelier for Iowa Corn Room 1925
Phallic symbol, pointing to homoeroticism□
§
○
Saturday Night Bath 1939
Lithograph
§
Deemed pornographic
§
Motif of homoeroticism and identity politics as well as depictions of
the male physique
Grant Wood was a gay man□
Often told that he could not paint women well□
§
○
Dinner for Threshers 1933
Untraditional ideas of masculinity and femininity
§
Men were brushing their hair and washing their faces
§
Men had "sunkissed" skin which was heavily criticized
§
This whole painting was criticized as Wood paying too close
attention to the men
§
○
Spring in Town 1941
Erotic subject matter of men
§
Crossing lines in categories of gender
§
Rejecting gender expectations
Man is gardening□
Flipping the gender roles□
§
○
•
Lesbian Farmers, Rural Midwest
Unknown photographer
○
Never really think of lesbians in rural areas, but more in urban cities
○
Nonnormative bodies
○
•
Dorothea Lange
Destitute pea pickers in California/Migrant mother
Mother of seven children
§
Concern about economic and living conditions of the working class
individual
§
Photographic depiction of David Siqueiros Proletarian Mother 1931
painting
§
○
•
Arthur Rothstein
Photographer
○
Gees Bend, Alabama
Very poor encampment of former slaves
§
Quilts
Made of found scraps and whatever resources were available□
No uniformity or coherence□
Made communally□
Connected to the idea of abstraction□
§
○
•
Lecture 11: 1930s Social Realism and the New Deal
Thursday, May 10, 2018
11:00 AM
Document Summary
Lecture 11: 1930s social realism and the new deal. Traumatic effects worldwide: unemployment, poverty, the rise of authoritarian regimes and socialism. Weaker nation states invaded by expanding powers ---> wwii. Franklin d. roosevelt elected in 1932 = the new deal. Series of social programs, public work projects, financial reforms and regulations. Enacted under fdr btwn 1933 and 1935 in direct response to the great. Alphabet soup organizations: ccc, cwa, fsa, ssa, wpa. Sent out documentary photographers to midwest and south to show the public that there was a need for social programs. Employing skilled laborers to build pools, roads, dams, etc. Also employed artists for very large artistic projects. 1934 - murals created by faculty and students form. Programs sought to support farmers, the unemployed, youth and the elderly elderly. Created constraints and safeguards on the banking industry and economy. Has roots in russian traditions -- marxist ideologies about society striving for equality.
