Art was a weapon and tool of resistance and enlightenment during the interwar years of 20th-cenutry America. Economic disparity, labor unrest, gender inequality, racial violence and fears of rising fascism defined the 1930s. In the exhibition “Pressing Issues: Printmaking as Social Justice in 1930s United States,” the Chazen Museum of Art at the University of Wisconsin–Madison examines artists’ critical commentaries on the injustices plaguing the nation during the Great Depression. On view Sept. 8–Dec. 13, the exhibition presents 40 rarely displayed prints from the collection of the Krannert Art Museum, Champaign, Illinois, which organized the show, as well as an additional six works from the Chazen’s collection.
Continue reading on PRINT Magazine…
Photo Credit: Boris Gorelick, “Aftermath,” 1938. Lithograph. Allocated by the U.S. government, commissioned through the New Deal art projects, 1943-4-21. Courtesy of Krannert Art Museum.