The gallery that I visited in the Museum of Modern Art focused on Social Realism, which consists of artwork created between the two World Wars. This period was defined by international political turmoil as well as the difficulties of a global economic depression. A number of artists in both Mexico and the United States used art to respond to these conditions; they created issue-oriented art that summoned awareness to the unfortunate and bleak circumstances that bounded them. Rather than abstraction they relied on realism to tackle the diminishing conditions of the poor and working class as well as to confront the political and social systems they believed were culpable. This style was intended to be effortlessly accessible and decipherable to a mass global audience. It was common for social realists to monumentalize their subjects; they illustrated both recognizable figures and unknown everyday workers as heroic symbols or strength and perseverance in the face of hardship. Each of the artworks in the gallery depicted what defines Social Realism; there were both paintings and sculptures and many of the artists had multiple pieces within the gallery.
Elizabeth Catlett’s print entitled Sharecropper focuses on the face of a female sharecropper whose face is worn from years of work but has a look of hope in her eyes; she looks determined and commanding. Elizabeth Catlett also has a sculpture in the gallery entitled Mother and Child; the piece is a monument to motherhood as experienced by numerous women across cultures. The sculpture is of a mother cradling her baby in her arms. The woman is a hero to the child; she is protecting the baby from the evils of the world.
The painting Proletarian Victim by David Alfaro Siqueiros features a Chinese woman who is stripped bound and shot in the head; she is monumentalized as a martyr through this piece. The ropes that bind her represent the oppressive government and upper class over the poor. Another painting Siqueiros has in this gallery entitled The Sob shows a working class woman with her head in her hands crying; the piece is a testament to the struggle of the working class. David Siqueiros painting, Ethnography shows a Mexican peasant whose face is a Pre-Columbian mask; the man is looking through unseeing eyes out of a formalized face to represent that the past is still part of him. The piece depicts that the traditional cannot be destroyed because it will come back to haunt you like a ghost. The same artist painted Echo of a Scream, one of the most powerful and well-known pieces in the gallery. Siqueiros’s Echo of a Scream was inspired by his own experiences from war and the suffering he observed; the baby highlights the internal suffering of the Revolution’s innocent victims. The painting is a metaphor for the endless distresses of war.
Jose Clemente Orozco’s painting Barricade depicts the peasants fighting in the Mexican Revolution. The Subway by Jose Clemente Orozco was intended to capture his early experience of New York as well as his pessimistic and depressing view he had on mankind. Orozco used a sympathetic image of an ordinary moment to express his feelings of loneliness and the uninviting and cruel conditions he witnessed in New York City.
Jacob Epstein used his bronze bust sculpture of Paul Robeson, a popular African American singer and film star, to monumentalize him as a Civil Rights activist. The sculpture shows Robeson looking up with a look of hope in his eyes, possibly hopes for a better future. Pugilist, a granite sculpture by Ahron Ben Shmuel, is ironically just a bust but the face is tough and appears to have a willingness to fight against a suppressor. Emma Lu Davis’ sculpture, Chinese Red Army Soldier, depicts a Communist soldier as a hero. Medal for Dishonor: Death by Gas by David Smith is a response to fascism; the piece shows that military decoration and commemorative medals which are intended as symbols of glory and distinction actually “honor” the most appalling actions of war. This specific “medal of dishonor” draws attention to the use of poisonous gas as a weapon. The sculpture Air Raid by Leo Amino depicts an innocent life taken in an air raid and the suffering of the innocent by such an event. Julio Gonzalez sculpted the head of a peasant woman with her face frozen in terror entitled, Head of the Montserrat. This piece was a response to the fascist violence in Spain.
Gladiators, a painting by Philip Guston displays the theme of fighting children. Guston said, “They are self portriats. I perceive myself as being behind the hood… I almost tried to imagine that I was living with the Klan. What would it be like to be evil?” Mervin Jules’ painting The Little Presser monumentalizes the worker; the painting displays the desperation, grimness and bleakness of the working class. Trouble in Frisco by Fletcher Market depicts the struggles of the Longshoremen's Union in San Francisco during the 1930s. The painting, Homestead by Thomas Hart Benton is an idealized representation of the rural American experience. Benton developed a slightly distorted, mannered style. The Sand Mines of Tetelpa by Juan O’Gorman is an image of the Mexican countryside depicted in a bird’s eye view; the landscape was of personal importance to him because his Irish father had immigrated to Mexico to work in the mining industry.
Although some of these works are disturbing they are visually captivating. All the artists used their art to respond to the conditions of international political turmoil and the difficulties of a global economic depression. They depended on realism to challenge the deteriorating conditions of the poor and working class in addition to oppose the political and social systems they believed were to blame. The style was meant to be comprehendible to a mass international audience.