Synopses & Reviews
Every work of art has a story behind it. In 1886 the German American artist Robert Koehler painted a dramatic wide-angle depiction of an imagined confrontation between factory workers and their employer. He called this oil painting The Strike. It has had a long and tumultuous international history as a symbol of class struggle and the cause of workers’ rights. First exhibited just days before the tragic Chicago Haymarket riot, The Strike became an inspiration for the labor movement. In the midst of the campaign for an eight-hour workday, it gained international attention at expositions in Paris, Munich, and the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. Though the painting fell into obscurity for decades in the early twentieth century, The Strike lived on in wood-engraved reproductions in labor publications. Its purchase, restoration, and exhibition by New Left activist Lee Baxandall in the early 1970s launched it to international fame once more, and collectors and galleries around the world scrambled to acquire it. It is now housed in the Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin, Germany. Art historian James M. Dennis has crafted a compelling “biography” of Koehler’s painting: its exhibitions, acclaim, neglect, and rediscovery. He introduces its German-born creator and politically diverse audiences and traces the painting’s acceptance and rejection through the years, exploring how class and sociopolitical movements affected its reception. Dennis considers the significance of key figures in the painting, such as the woman asserting her presence in the center of action. He compellingly explains why The Strike has earned its identity as the iconic painting of the industrial labor movement.
Review
"As fine a corrective to the usual mode of ‘labeling as we might wish for."—Art Times
Review
"This instructive book is worthwhile not only for those interested in the specific artists or the period discussed, but for anyone seeking to understand the processes by which artistic production is pressed into service in the arbitration of culture across the social and political spectrum. . . . Renegade Regionalists is a milestone."—New Art Examiner
Review
"Dennis offers many fresh new observations on the nature of regionalism . . . a major contribution to the field."—Choice
Synopsis
In the early twentieth century, Marcus Garvey sowed the seeds of a new black pride and determination. Attacked by the black intelligentsia and ridiculed by the white press, this Jamaican immigrant astonished all with his black nationalist rhetoric. In just four years, he built the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), the largest and most powerful all-black organization the nation had ever seen. With hundreds of branches, throughout the United States, the UNIA represented Garvey's greatest accomplishment and, ironically, the source of his public disgrace. Black Moses brings this controversial figure to life and recovers the significance of his life and work.
"Those who are interested in the revolutionary aspects of the twentieth century in America should not miss Cronon's book. It makes exciting reading."--The Nation
"A very readable, factual, and well-documented biography of Marcus Garvey."--The Crisis, NAACP
"In a short, swiftly moving, penetrating biography, Mr. Cronon has made the first real attempt to narrate the Garvey story. From the Jamaican's traumatic race experiences on the West Indian island to dizzy success and inglorious failure on the mainland, the major outlines are here etched with sympathy, understanding, and insight."--Mississippi Valley Historical Review (Now the Journal of American History).
"Good reading for all serious history students."--Jet
"A vivid, detailed, and sound portrait of a man and his dreams."--Political Science Quarterly
Synopsis
Famous for iconic images of the rural Midwest—such as American Gothic, Politics in Missouri, and Baptism in Kansas—Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton, and John Steuart Curry have long been lumped together under the rubric the "Regionalists." James M. Dennis offers a fresh and sophisticated look at the modernist tendencies of this trio of American painters, arguing that the individual styles of Wood, Benton, and Curry were both mislabeled and misunderstood. Revisiting the artistic and political culture of America between the World Wars, he shows that critics and ideologues—from Time Magazine to the Partisan Review—pigeonholed, praised, or pilloried the Regionalists to serve their own critical intentions.
Synopsis
An art “biography” that traces the tumultuous international history of Robert Koehler’s painting “The Strike”, which has become a symbol of class struggle and the cause of workers’ rights and the iconic painting of the industrial labor movement.
Synopsis
James M. Dennis is professor emeritus of art history at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is author of Karl Bitter, Architectural Sculptor, 1867–1915; Grant Wood: A Study in American Art and Culture; and Renegade Regionalists: The Modern Independence of Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton, and John Steuart Curry as well as catalog essays for the traveling exhibitions Grant Wood: An American Master Revealed and Grant Wood’s Studio, Birthplace of American Gothic.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 249-273) and index.
About the Author
“A fascinating study of an artist and the fate of his most renowned painting. . . . Clear and readable . . . it takes on the character of a cultural mystery.”—Lewis Erenberg, author of The Greatest Fight of Our Generation
“Path-breaking in its conception and innovative in its approach to the intersection of art, class, and culture.”—James Lorence, author of The Unemployed People’s Movement
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I: Robert Koehler's Early Life, Artistic Apprenticeship, and Initial Worker Paintings
1. Koehler's Art Training: Milwaukee, Manhattan, and Munich, 1865–79
2. Images of Women: Munich, 1879–92
3. Koehler's First Worker Images and The Socialist: Munich, 1879–85
Part II: The Origin and Initial Reception of The Strike
4. Art Historical Background and the Railway Strike of 1877
5. Influences Shaping The Strike
6. Labor-History Context: An Era of Strife, 1877–86
7. A Strikebound Debut, a Conflicting Reception, a Paris Interlude: Early Exhibitions, 1886–89
Part III: Decades of Neglect
8. Milwaukee and the Chicago World's Fair: 1889–94
9. Transatlantic Progeny and a Minneapolis Refuge: 1893–1917
10. Ambiguous Purchase and Gradual Obscurity: 1900–1917
Part IV: Rediscovery and Belated Acclaim
11. Rescue, Restoration, and Return to New York City: 1917–72
12. Labor Union Patronage, Museum Exhibitions, and National Fame: 1972–82
13. Germany Reclaims a National Treasure: 1983 to the Present
Afterword
Notes
Index