(American 1903-1988)

Oil on Canvas, 21 3/8 x 27 inches( 54 .3 x 68.6)

Museum Purchase, 1944

QCC / CURRICULUM STANDARDS & OBJECTIVES:

Primary:

-Explain the use of symbols and cultural icons in selected artworks, such as flags,

jewelry, uniforms, products and company logos

-Demonstrates how artists use spatial techniques such as overlapping, size, and placement of shapes

-Develops criteria for sorting artworks into categories of landscapes, cityscapes, still life, seascapes, and portraits

Middle:

-Examines how political, geographic, and social developments of America are

reflected in artworks created during this time period

-Identifies the interrelationships between elements of art and the principles of design in artworks and the environment

-Judges an artwork on how successfully it expresses aspects of the society in which it was produced

Secondary:

-Identifies the divisions of space in artworks: foreground, middleground, and

background

-Determines the influences of historical, social, and religious factors on the development of paintings

-Identifies and analyzes the effect the media and techniques have on the expressive and formal content of an artwork

INTERPRETIVE QUESTIONS:

1. What is going on in this painting? Who is the figure? How can you tell what he does for a living?

2. Where is the farmer? What sort of building? How do we know that--what clues does the artist give us? Look at the posters and signs.

3. What is the background landscape like? Is this a city or a country environment? Is there anything growing in the fields in the background?

4. What do you see in the foreground? Why is there only one corn stalk and some empty cans?

5. Can you put together, from everything we’ve looked at, the story the artist is trying to tell? What could the title of this painting mean?

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Although he spent most of his career in New York, Robert Gwathmey is considered a Southern artist, as he was from the South and painted Southern subjects. Born in Richmond, Virginia, Gwathmey studied at North Carolina State College, the Maryland Institute of Art, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art. Gwathmey settled first in Philadelphia, where he got his first teaching job, and later in New York City. He became involved with political artists’ groups in New York, and began simultaneously to incorporate into his work subject matter from his experiences in the South. He was moved by the plight of poor farmers, particularly African American sharecroppers, and his paintings from the late 1930s and 1940s reflect a corrupt social system that encouraged poverty, racism and near-slavery.

A white artist, Gwathmey was influenced by African American painters Jacob Lawrence, William H. Johnson and Charles White, and by other contemporaries such as Ben Shahn. Each of these painters addressed social issues and painted in an abstracted figurative style. Gwathmey was also influenced by art ranging from medieval stained glass to the Cubism and distortions of Picasso. As time progressed, Gwathmey’s paintings became more stylized and abstracted. In the 1950’s and 1960’s, Gwathmey continued to make occasional visits to the South, and painted both black and white farmers and laborers - now concentrating on the dignity of the individual and the work, rather than conveying an overt social message. Although he considered himself a Modernist, Gwathmey resisted the dominant New York painting style, Abstract Expressionism, which he felt was too disconnected from human concerns. He returned to social comment in his paintings of the 1960s and 1970s, although his later work also included whimsical pieces and still life subjects.

Marketing, painted in the early 1940’s, is typical of the social realism found in the early work of Robert Gwathmey, depicting situations faced by tenant farmers and sharecroppers, particularly African Americans, in the rural South. This work is instrumental--that is, the artist means to tell us about something that is troubling, and wants his art to serve actively as inspiration for change. In this work, an African American man is shown standing on the porch of a country store. Dressed in a straw hat and overalls, he appears to be a farmer, and he peers into his hand in a gesture that suggests he is counting change. Nearby, a small hand-painted sign advertises apples, while peeling posters spread across the side of the store, garishly advertising poultry, Coca Cola, 666 Cold and Fever remedy, and a circus. A blonde, white beauty queen appears in a poster possibly advertising beauty aids. In the background lies a blacktop road and a barren expanse of red clay. In the foreground, a single stalk of corn springs up in front of the posters, while several opened cans (label colors suggest vegetables and soup cans) litter the ground. The work is painted in flat areas of color with minimal shading. The artist appears to comment on several issues surrounding the rural South in a time of great change. One-fourth of black farmers in the early part of this century were landowners, and the remainder were sharecroppers or tenant farmers who worked the land for a small share of the crops. The lone corn stalk and the empty food cans provide clues to the man’s situation. Racist laws in Southern states, and the emergence of commercial agriculture, forced many blacks from subsistence farming into sharecropping. Commercial farming favored very large plantings of a single crop, such as tobacco, cotton, or corn. If a blight like the boll weevil or a natural disaster (drought, flood, winds) occurred, crops were wiped out and tenant farmers often faced hunger. This farmer, though he works all day to grow food, may be having difficulty finding enough money to buy food that has been canned by a large company. The world of money and advertising ("marketing"), as seen in the posters, reminds the viewer of everything that is out of reach for the farmer. Rural markets, like the one shown in Marketing, were extremely important to farmers, who would buy goods on credit during the planting season. Often credit charges were so high, many farmers owed everything they made to the store.

Daniel, Pete, Standing at the Crossroads, Southern Life Since 1900, Hill and Wang, N.Y., 1986.

Piehl, Charles K., "A Southern Artist at Home in the North: Robert Gwathmey’s Acceptance of His Identity." The Southern Quarterly (Fall 1987).

IN THE CLASSROOM:

PRODUCTION--Collage

Materials: colored construction paper, including primary, complementary, and neutral colors (torn/cut pieces of paper optional); scissors; pencils; Elmer’s glue or glue sticks; colored posterboard (optional)

1. Assign a collage project emphasizing the primary, complementary, and neutral colors, identifying these colors first in Gwathmey’s work. Students will create a collage depicting an everyday setting--a house and yard; a bedroom; a store; a downtown; a park, etc. Students should first select a background--either a whole sheet of construction paper or a piece of cut posterboard (this is sturdier). They should then decide what kind of a setting they will portray.

2. They may create the objects/items in their setting either by drawing and then cutting out these objects on variously colored pieces of construction paper; or by creating forms made out of several bits of cut or torn colored construction paper. Students should be instructed to utilize primary, complementary, and neutral colors. Students should show depth by overlapping objects in the collage (see the posters in Gwathmey’s work). They may wish to abraid or tear the edges of certain collage elements--to create, for instance, the "fringe" of a lamp or couch, or a torn poster.

Alternate Project --Collage featuring images cut from magazines

Materials: Same as above; Also, magazine images of figures and settings

1. Teachers should collect pages from magazines featuring a) human figures and b) an environment or setting (a kitchen, a garden, mountains, a driveway, etc.). Place the pages in two separate boxes or piles--one for figures, one for settings.

2. Students should choose pages from each pile with images they like. Next, they should cut out and collage a human form on a sheet of construction paper or cut posterboard--this figure can be comprised of body parts from several different figures (featuring, for example, a woman’s head on a man’s body, etc.) This figure should be placed in a distinct setting, created by the elements cut out and collaged from the "setting" pages. Overlapping to indicate depth should be encouraged.

3. If time permits, hold a critique at the end of the project and have each student come forward and talk about their work--who the figure is and why they are depicted in that setting.

ART HISTORY: Compare Gwathmey’s work to other works produced in the 1930’s and 40’s which dealt with social issues surrounding the Great Depression. For example, have students view the photographic works of Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange, both of whom were funded by FDR’s Works Progress Administration, part of the New Deal, to document poverty in rural areas, and specifically in the South. Does Gwathmey share concerns with Evans and Lange? Is Gwathmey’s work documentary? How does his work differ from theirs?

Next compare Gwathmey’s work to that of African American artist Jacob Lawrence, whose work focused on African American social issues and history. How is Gwathmey’s style similar to Lawrence’s? How is it different?

Variation: Students can be asked to interview an older family member or friend who was alive during the 1930’s or 40’s. After compiling a list of 15-20 interview questions in class, inspired by the discussion of the Gwathmey work, the students should conduct the interview, recording the responses by taking notes or taping/videotaping the interview. This material can be used in either a brief essay, or to create a work of art based on life in the 30’s and 40’s.

ART CRITICISM: Illustrate and identify primary, complementary, and neutral colors for students, if these have not yet been introduced. Ask students to examine the Robert Gwathmey image and identify these colors within the image. How do the primary and complementary colors help attract the viewer’s eye? Discuss space in the painting. Look at the posters on the side of the building. Do some posters appear to be older than others? Do some posters overlap others? How can we tell that the corn plant is in front of the building?

AESTHETICS: Break the students into groups and discuss whether or not art should have a social message. Is the role of art to be beautiful? Are there works of art that are not beautiful, but are meaningful and therefore valuable? Does art have a responsibility to be either beautiful or socially meaningful? In other words, should it teach us something? What is the role of art and the artist in today’s society?

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