Object Details
- Luce Center Label
- This image of a downtrodden family making their way through a landscape that combines urban and rural elements has the haunting quality of a nightmare. It emphasizes the misery that workers across the country experienced during the Great Depression. Mitchell Siporin was sympathetic to these workers and felt a connection with them as a Jewish man whose family had suffered and been forced to leave their homeland. He once said: “I have known depression and war and lived in other countries than my own. Everything I have seen and felt I have [hoped would] . . . vindicate and reinforce my artistic ideas . . .” (O’Toole, Mitchell Siporin: The Early Years 1930-1950, 1990)
- Data Source
- Smithsonian American Art Museum
- Artist
- Mitchell Siporin, born New York City 1910-died Boston, MA 1976
- Date
- 1938
- Credit Line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from General Services Administration
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 24 1/8 x 36 1/8 in. (61.3 x 91.7 cm)
- Type
- Painting
