Socialist Realism (karen Bacolod, Maria Lam, Bike Jiang)

George Brown College

From Galleries to Graffiti

Professor: Benjamin McCarthy

DB 4: Social Realism

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Submitted by

Karen Bacolod (100710694)

Maria Lam (100891969)

Bike Jiang (100920232)

On February 28, 2016

Introduction

Social realism is an art movement under realism, mainly through rustic portrayal of struggling against the hardships of life, to describe the social or racial inequality and economic difficulties. It concentrate on working class with more magnificent depicted. The movement style and scene usually convey to social or political with ironic protest . It went up the peak time during The great depression in the United States in 1930. The Soviet Union in the 1930s gradually formed developed a new socialist realism and self-contained and to the socialist countries had a tremendous impact. In addition to abstract and non representational, outside the two major schools in dream and irrational, about between the two world wars still exist a stock with a view to reflect the trend of the social reality (Wikipedia). This trend in the country although there are different forms and each other no inevitable relation, but aroused the extensive social response. The name of social realism is quite representative. It can be extended for a specific type of art, and cover all reflections of social reality of art. This art sometimes focus on politics and revolution and other time it tent to the service for the modern industrial society. It mainly focused on the lower middle class people as well as some advocates of the artist and the identity of the working class. The ideological roots of the art can be traced back to futurism, constructivism and Bauhaus at the beginning of the 20th century modernism art certain ideas, but also it was inspired by the October Revolution in Russia. In our assignment, we developed three typical social realism artists as well as their works to explain more specific about social realism art.

Hugo Gellert

Hugo Gellert was another artist that often depicted themes of social realism in his work. Like Gropper, he often tried to reach the masses by distributing his art in magazines. He sought to shake up the ideals of the upper class and bring forth revolution from the lower working class. Similar to other socialist art the idealistic and romanticised depiction of the labourer was prevalent in his prints. For instance, here is a poster titled Winning the Battle of Production, the man and woman shown here are both standing strong and proud. The tanks below them not and smoke in the background not seeming to phase their determination to triumph.

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(Images by Hugo Gellert)

William Gropper

William Gropper was an illustrator whose art often took strong influence from both Marxists and communist ideas. These were often found in publications such as the New Masses and the Communist Party’s, Daily Worker which served as vehicles to teach and spread its ideology to the working class. He and other artists of his time wanted to reach as many of this demographic as they could with their art in these radical magazines.

Here are some examples his work (they were used as covers for the New Masses publications of May 1933 and March 1934):

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    (Images by William Gropper)

Both of these images invoke symbols of rebellion and revolution for the humble worker which result in their connection to socialist principles. They are both in a way considered calls to action where the first actually shows the imagery of a labour worker breaking free of his shackles and towering over the capitalists in a confrontational stance whereas the second shows the division between the two classes with both sides inciting violence in a war like fashion.

Jack Levine

Jack Levine was an American Social Realist painter best known for his used of satire on modern life. He was born on January 3, 1915 in the South End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. He was the youngest of eight children to parents who were Jewish Lithuanian immigrants. When Jack Levine's family moved to Boston's Roxbury neighborhood, at the age of 8, he started taking art classes at a nearby community center and at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He has also witnessed the realities of street-life-drunks, prostitutes, politicians, and policemen that made it became the central inspiration of his art. Levine's talent was recognized by Denman Ross, an artist on the Harvard University faculty, and supported Levine by offering him studio space, financial assistance and arranged for Levine's drawings to be exhibited at Harvard's Fogg Museum.