Nicola Ziroli
Category : MulvaneVirtualExhibits

Location: Virtual (originally exhibited Main Level, South Gallery)

The United States became a global superpower around the turn of the 20th century. From that point forward, it has upheld the ideologies of capitalism and democracy as vital components for ensuring the success of the "American dream." During the 20th century, however, the United States also experienced many natural, political, social, and economic crises that posed challenges to this grand narrative of American exceptionalism. As a result, American artists have continually considered issues of belonging and exclusion and winning and losing within established power systems. Whose America? explores how visual art has promoted, questioned, or flatly denied claims that systems of power based on capitalist democracy work for the benefit of all Americans.

 

Students from Dr. Madeline Eschenburg’s 20th-century art course collaboratively curated this exhibition in response to the 2022 WUmester theme of truth. Students defined the theme and subthemes, selected works, and wrote interpretive labels. Below are a few highlights from the exhibition.

 

above: Nicola Ziroli, 30 Cents An Hour, 1939, oil on canvas

The Working Class

Gods, kings, and politicians were figures typically depicted in art throughout history, while lower-class citizens were rarely represented. At the turn of the 20th century in America, artists, starting with the Ashcan School, turned their attention to the working class. The Ashcan School was a group of New York painters who captured the lower class enjoying or toiling through everyday life.

New Deal era government-funded programs such as the Works Progress Administration (WPA) employed millions of Americans in response to the economic hardships brought on by the Great Depression (1929-1933). Its visual arts arm, the Federal Art Project (FAP) (1935-1943), provided work relief for artists in various media--painters, sculptors, muralists, and graphic artists. In addition, the Farm Security Administration (FSA) hired photographers to capture rural, impoverished America to demonstrate farmers’ hardships. Some artists employed during this time showed the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl’s gruesome impact on Americans. Others opted to portray rural workers in a romanticized, more positive light, highlighting the strength and resilience of American laborers, farmers, factory employees, and railroad workers.

Art is often used as a powerful tool to highlight the imbalance of wealth in the world. For example, Nicola Ziroli’s painting and Martin Lewis’ etching focus on women in the 1930s, who are undoubtedly from different socioeconomic classes. Lewis depicts a lavishly dressed woman enjoying the streets of New York, seemingly unaffected by the economic crash. Alternatively, Ziroli and Russel Limbach’s works showcase people working long, straining hours for dimes a day.

Text by Amanda Pope

The Working Class

Gods, kings, and politicians were figures typically depicted in art throughout history, while lower-class citizens were rarely represented. At the turn of the 20th century in America, artists, starting with the Ashcan School, turned their attention to the working class. The Ashcan School was a group of New York painters who captured the lower class enjoying or toiling through everyday life.

New Deal era government-funded programs such as the Works Progress Administration (WPA) employed millions of Americans in response to the economic hardships brought on by the Great Depression (1929-1933). Its visual arts arm, the Federal Art Project (FAP) (1935-1943), provided work relief for artists in various media--painters, sculptors, muralists, and graphic artists. In addition, the Farm Security Administration (FSA) hired photographers to capture rural, impoverished America to demonstrate farmers’ hardships. Some artists employed during this time showed the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl’s gruesome impact on Americans. Others opted to portray rural workers in a romanticized, more positive light, highlighting the strength and resilience of American laborers, farmers, factory employees, and railroad workers.

Art is often used as a powerful tool to highlight the imbalance of wealth in the world. For example, Nicola Ziroli’s painting and Martin Lewis’ etching focus on women in the 1930s, who are undoubtedly from different socioeconomic classes. Lewis depicts a lavishly dressed woman enjoying the streets of New York, seemingly unaffected by the economic crash. Alternatively, Ziroli and Russel Limbach’s works showcase people working long, straining hours for dimes a day.

Text by Amanda Pope

The Working Class

Gods, kings, and politicians were figures typically depicted in art throughout history, while lower-class citizens were rarely represented. At the turn of the 20th century in America, artists, starting with the Ashcan School, turned their attention to the working class. The Ashcan School was a group of New York painters who captured the lower class enjoying or toiling through everyday life.

New Deal era government-funded programs such as the Works Progress Administration (WPA) employed millions of Americans in response to the economic hardships brought on by the Great Depression (1929-1933). Its visual arts arm, the Federal Art Project (FAP) (1935-1943), provided work relief for artists in various media--painters, sculptors, muralists, and graphic artists. In addition, the Farm Security Administration (FSA) hired photographers to capture rural, impoverished America to demonstrate farmers’ hardships. Some artists employed during this time showed the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl’s gruesome impact on Americans. Others opted to portray rural workers in a romanticized, more positive light, highlighting the strength and resilience of American laborers, farmers, factory employees, and railroad workers.

Art is often used as a powerful tool to highlight the imbalance of wealth in the world. For example, Nicola Ziroli’s painting and Martin Lewis’ etching focus on women in the 1930s, who are undoubtedly from different socioeconomic classes. Lewis depicts a lavishly dressed woman enjoying the streets of New York, seemingly unaffected by the economic crash. Alternatively, Ziroli and Russel Limbach’s works showcase people working long, straining hours for dimes a day.

Text by Amanda Pope


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