MAG Collection - Non-Fiction

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© Estate of Robert Gwathmey/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

Non-Fiction

1943
29 x 24 in. (73.7 x 61 cm)

Robert Gwathmey
American (1903 - 1988)

Object Type: Painting

Medium and Support: Oil on canvas

Credit Line: Marion Stratton Gould Fund

Accession Number: 1951.7

Location: Currently on view

Link to this object

Collection: Encyclopedia Britannica Collection

In the 1940s, Robert Gwathmey focused his artist’s eye upon the lives of African-American sharecroppers in the South. Non-Fiction shows a common sight on southern farms; older children tended to the young when both parents worked all day in the fields. The barbed wire and minstrel figure symbolize the dual oppressions of segregation and racism.

[Gallery label text, 2007]

Provenance

Purchased by the Encyclopedia Britannica Collection of Contemporary American Painting, Chicago, IL; purchased by Senator William Benton, CT, 1948; purchased by the Gallery in 1951

Keywords Click a term to view the records with the same keyword

Encyclopedia Britannica Collection

20th century

Images of Black People

children

1900-2000

paintings

Exhibition List

This object was included in the following exhibitions:

Contemporary American Painting Encyclopaedia Britannica 4/12/1945 - 7/30/1950
New Accessions of American Painting from the Encyclopaedia Britannica Collection 1/19/1951 - 2/28/1951
20th Century Vision Memorial Art Gallery 1967-1968
Contrasts/Comparisons 9/28/1973 - 10/28/1973
The Mask of Comedy: The Art of Italian Commedia The JB Speed Art Museum 9/11/1990 - 11/4/1990
Robert Gwathmey: Master Painter of the Old South The Butler Institute of American Art 9/5/1999 - 8/13/2000
Picturing the Banjo Palmer Museum of Art 12/10/2005 - 10/21/2006
A Force for Change: African-American Art and the Julius Rosenwald Fund 2/6/2009 - 7/25/2010

Bibliography

This object has the following bibliographic references:

Article Title: New Accessions of American Paintings. Article Scope: Article. Memorial Art Gallery. Gallery Notes. Rochester, New York: Memorial Art Gallery, 1935-1995. Volume Number: 16, Issue Number: 3. Issue Date: Jan.-Feb. 1951.
Article Title: Britannica Collection Fulfills Promise. Article Scope: Article. Art Digest. New York, New York: Art Digest, Inc. Volume Number: 19, Issue Number: 20. Issue Date: September 15, 1945. Page Number: 5, 25
Article Scope: Article and reproduction. Grace Pagano and Donald Bear. The Encyclopaedia Britannica Collection of Contemporary American Painting. Chicago, Illinois: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1946.
Docent Newsletter. Rochester, NY: Memorial Art Gallery
Article Author: Schulman, Daniel. Article Title: African American Art & The Julius Rosenwald Fund. Article Scope: Article and reproduction. American Art Review: . Kansas City, MO: Kellaway Pub. Co., 1973-. Volume Number: 22, Issue Number: 1. Issue Date: January - February 2010. Page Number: 116-119, illustrated p. 117
Article Scope: Mention. Elizabeth Brayer. Magnum Opus: The Story of the Memorial Art Gallery, 1913-1988. Rochester, NY: Memorial Art Gallery, 1988.
Article Scope: Article and reproduction. Michael Kammen, Ph.D.. Robert Gwathmey: The Life and Art of a Passionate Observer. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1999.
Article Author: Piehl, Charles K.. Article Title: The Eutaw Mural and the Southern Art of Robert Gwathmey. Article Scope: Article and reproduction. The Alabama Review: A Quarterly Journal of Alabama History. Alabama Historical Association Volume Number: XLV, Issue Number: 2. Issue Date: April 1992. Page Number: 122, Figure Number: 10
Article Scope: Entry. Eleonora Luciano. The Mask of Comedy: The Art of Italian Commedia. Louisville, KY: JB Speed Art Museum, 1990.
Art News.
Leo Mazow. Picturing the Banjo. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania University Press, 2005.
Article Author: Kammen, Michael. Article Title: Robert Gwathmey: Non-Fiction. Article Scope: Chapter and reproduction. Marjorie B. Searl, ed. Seeing America: painting and sculpture from the collection of the Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester. Rochester, NY: Memorial Art Gallery, 2006. Page Number: 262-264
Article Scope: Entry and reproduction. Daniel Schulman, ed. A Force for Change: African American Art and the Julius Rosenwald Fund. Chicago, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2009.