American Social Realism

by Carolyn Scharf and Tori Berels

“The [American] Social Realists gave the Depression a face, an identity that has endured.”

History

• Stems from European Realism

• based off of Industrial Revolution conditions and concerns surrounding them

• Key artists: Gustave Courbet, Jean-Francois Millet, etc.

• Art form made famous by USSR

• Used as political propaganda

American Social Realism

• An art movement consisting of realist artists who draw attention to living conditions and lifestyles of urban, lower-class citizens

• Criticizes social and political structures

• Artists focus on issues such as:

• Unemployment, poverty, political corruption/injustice, labor-management conflict and “excess of American materialism

Timeline of Social Realism

• Industrialization- Children working in factories

• Immigration- Living conditions in urban areas

• Great Depression

• Post World War II- more commercialized version during Civil Rights

The Ashcan School

• 1900’s realist artists challenging American impressionists

• realistically portrayed how the city and working class lived

• Robert Henri (1865-1929)- mentor to Ashcan painters

• George Luks

• William Glackens

• Everett Shinn

• John Sloan

• George Bellows

Paddy at the Met(1908) George Bellows

The Ashcan School

• “Ashcan” comes from George Bellow’s painting “Disappointments of an Ash Can”

• The ‘school’ consists of urban realists who supported Henri’s mantra “Art for Life’s Sake”

• Interested in studying societal activities

• Not social critics or reformers

• Avoided civil unease and class tensions

• Selective of subjects and scenery during unsettling times in American society

John Sloan• * The Sixth Avenue Elevated at Third Street (1928)

John Sloan

Jacob Riis

• Danish native, originally a police reporter

• Wrote How the Other Half Lives

• showed desperate and squalid conditions of immigrant America

• Gave motivation for sanitation reform

• “Children of the Poor (1892)

• Had little hope in the government to reform

“Untitled”- How the Other Half LivesJacob Riis

Lewis Hine• Photographer who expressed social concerns (social documentarist)

• Worked for National Child Labor Committee

• Exposed urban scenes of immigrant children

• Led to stricter child labor laws in the 1930’s and 40’s

“Untitled”-Lewis Hine

Sacco and Vanzetti (1927)

Ben Shahn

• Ben Shahn encompassed the idea that artists could change the way people view socio-economic issues and injustices

• During the Sacco and Vanzetti trial, his work hit home by focusing on “not so thought about” aspects of political decisions

Diego Rivera• Native of Mexico

• A Marxist

• Used Italian fresco painting methods, chosen art form- social inequality

• Incorporated relationship between nature and industry, technology and the past

• Used walls of public places as a medium for his art (murals)

Detroit Industry Murals -Diego

Rivera, DIA

“An artist is above all a human being, profoundly human to the core. If the artist can’t feel everything that humanity fuels, if the artist isn’t capable of loving until he forgets himself and sacrifices himself if necessary, if he won’t put down his magic brush and had the fight against the oppressor, then he isn’t a great artist.” -Diego Rivera

• Led to reinvention of public art in the US

• Led to the Federal Art Program of the 1930s

• “Craftsman at the service of the community”

• Initiated government reform in the 1930’s with FDR

• Federal Art Project

• Works Progress Association

Diego Rivera

Detroit Industr

y Murals- Diego Rivera,

DIA

Diego Rivera- Projects• 1930

• American Stock Exchange Luncheon Club

• California School of Fine Arts

• Showed working class problems

Allegory of California (1931) -

Diego Rivera

Diego Rivera

• 1932

• DIA Mural

• controversial

• 1933

• Man at Crossroads for the Rockefellers

• also controversial

Rivera and the End of Social Realism

• Less sought after in the 1940’s with the rise of Cubism, DADA, and Surrealism because of fleeing European immigrants.

Dorothea Lange • After Crash of 1929- Focused on social realism and photography

• Joined the Farm Security Admin- a group of photographers who took pictures of migrant workers

• Documented internment of Japanese Americans during WWII

Migrant Mother (1936)

Dorothea Lange

Dorothea Lange• Methods

• talked to people about their lives

• wanted natural photos of them

• shows an overall atmosphere rather than single events

• “White Angel Breadline” (1929) put her in the national spotlight.

Federal Government Involvement

• Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Association

• Employed by FDR from 1929 to 1943

• Led to the start of community art centers.

• Employed artists during Great Depression

• Government wanted to combine art and patriotism to lift spirits during hard times.

• Section of Painting and Sculpture- government made a department to give Americans jobs by choosing art to be put on buildings, such as murals

• Public Works of Art- hired artists with the New Deal- first program of its type. (1933-1934)

• Federal Art Project- project lasting from 1935-1943 which helped make 200,000 pieces in the forms of murals, posters, paintings.

Public Art Works

Heroic Consumerism

Materials and Methods

• Paintings

• Murals

• Photography

• Sculptures (mostly done by federal government)

• Propaganda

• cartoons

• poetry

• media

• advertisements

“We Can Do It!” -J. Howard Miller

(Rosie the Riveter)

Public Reaction

• Public Supported- wanted reform

• Reacted to: cruelty of industrialization, materialism, commercialization, control of federal government, (economic) prejudice/inequality.

• Government Reaction- suppressed the art, later used as a public service program to turn art into an industry

Literature• Sister Carrie- Theodore Dreiser (1900)

• about a Midwestern girl who becomes a prostitute in Chicago

• Wasn’t distributed widely because of the subject matter, and the realistic portrayal.

• Carrie isn’t punished for her lifestyle, differing from literature of the time.

“Chicago” by Carl Sandburg HOG Butcher for the World,

     Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,     Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;     Stormy, husky, brawling,     City of the Big Shoulders:

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I     have seen your painted women under the gas lamps     luring the farm boys.And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it     is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to     kill again.And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the     faces of women and children I have seen the marks     of wanton hunger.And having answered so I turn once more to those who     sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer     and say to them:Come and show me another city with lifted head singing     so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on     job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the     little soft cities;

Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning     as a savage pitted against the wilderness,          Bareheaded,          Shoveling,          Wrecking,          Planning,          Building, breaking, rebuilding,Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with     white teeth,Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young     man laughs,Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has     never lost a battle,Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse.     and under his ribs the heart of the people,               Laughing!Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of     Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog     Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with     Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

Literature• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

(1939)

• migrant family moves to California where they still face bad luck

• written during the Depression- a public and critical success

• Technique- features the Joad family, and then talks about nameless migrant families.

The Grapes of Wrath Film (1940)• Incredibly popular and successful

Al Joad:Ain't you gonna look back, Ma? Give the ol' place a last look?

Ma Joad: We're going' to California, ain't we? All right then let's go to California.

Al Joad: That don't sound like you, Ma. You never was like that before.

Ma Joad: I never had my house pushed over before. Never had my family stuck out on the road. Never had to lose everything I had in life.

• Quote shows the attitude of the time.

Grapes of Wrath Film Clip

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zNfpLJV6dw

• Clip shows the attitude during the Depression and the impact of it based on the times.