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William Gropper Gropper was born in 1897 on the Lower East Side of New York, the son of poor parents from the Ukraine and Roumania. His mother and father worked long hours in sweatshops to support their family. Gropper studied art with George Bellows and Robert Henri at the Ferrer School and later at the New York School of Fine and Applied Arts. He contributed work to such magazines as The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The New Masses, Sunday Worker, and the Yiddish daily paper,
Freiheit. Gropper's art reflects a keen sense of social injustice and his graphic work was extremely influential during the Great Depression. He attacked fascism throughout the world. A cartoon of Emperor Hirohito, appearing in Vanity Fair, 1935, caused diplomatic repercussions between the United States and Japan. In 1937, Gropper was given a one-man show at the A.C.A. Gallery in New York, dedicated to the defenders of democracy in Spain, and a series of prints, from his Guggenheim Fellowship, on the problems of the Dust Bowl. In 1952, Senator Joseph McCarthy, called Gropper before the House of Un-American Activities Committee because of his affiliation with various periodicals, his journeys to the Soviet Union, and a distribution of prints from a map painting, titled, "William Gropper's America: Its Folklore." Senator McCarthy considered these activities to be subversive, inspired and backed by Communists. Gropper refused to answer any questions and invoked the Fifth Amendment causing him to be blacklisted. Upset with the Committee's decisions, he retaliated with a scorching series of graphic works, entitled, "The Capriccios," consisting of fifty lithographs, inspired by Goya. In the 1960's, he received a grant from the Ford Foundation to work in the area of color printmaking at the Tamarind Institute Workship in California. Gropper's philosophy of life in art is: "I am interested in mankind. People create the "landscape" in my works. I fight wrongs. I fight in a creative sense."
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William Gropper
American (1897-1977)
Presidential Mania
20 x 16 in.
Lithograph printed in color, c.1969, edition about 100. Signed in pencil with edition
noted as "printer's proof." Printed by George Miller on heavy wove paper with
watermark, Rives.
$550. |
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William Gropper
American (1897-1977)
The Senate
14-1/8 x 17 in.
Lithograph printed in color,
1940, edition about 100.
Signed in pencil.
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William Gropper
American (1897-1977)
Horsemen
9-1/2 x 13 in.
Lithograph, 1942, edition 250. Signed on the stone, lower right, and in pencil. Illustrated in American Prints in the Library of Congress, Karen F. Beall, 1970, p.182.
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William Gropper
American (1897-1977)
The Stock Market
10 x 14-1/8 in.
Lithograph, c.1930's, probably an edition less than 10. Signed on the stone, lower left and in pencil. In good condition other than some traces of glue mucilage in the corners of the margins, similar to the glue produced by the LePage company.
In this cartoon you can see the influence of the French political cartoonist, Daumier. Most of the time Gropper was affectionately called the "Daumier of his day."
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William Gropper
American (1897-1977)
Relief
10 x 13-7/8 in.
Lithograph, c.1930's, edition about 10 or less. Signed and titled in pencil. A pencil note in the lower left corner, "#3 of 5." Illustrated in A Treasury of American Prints, Thomas Craven, 1939, pl.49. In good condition other than some traces of glue mucilage in the corners of the margins, including the right margin, similar to the glue produced by the LePage company.
The man seated at the table emulates graft and greed along with the hog, food, and drink on the table. The artist, in this cartoon, shows there will be little left of the relief money going to the farmers.
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William Gropper
American (1897-1977)
Sweatshop
9-1/2 x 12 in.
Lithograph, 1934, edition about 300. Signed on the stone, lower right. In excellent condition printed by George Miller on heavy wove paper with a watermark, Rives. Sheet size: 11-1/2 x 15-7/8 in. Full margins, deckle edges all around. Published in 1936 by the Contemporary Print Group in a portfolio of six prints by American artists, titled, The American Scene. Illustrated in, A Treasury of American Prints, Thomas Craven, 1939, pl.46.
$350. |
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