William Gropper
Encyclopedia
William Victor "Bill" Gropper (18971977), was a U.S.
cartoonist
, painter
, lithographer, and muralist. A committed radical
, Gropper is best known for the political work which he contributed to such left wing publications as The Revolutionary Age
, The Liberator
, The New Masses
, The Worker
, and The Morning Freiheit
.
, the eldest of 6 children. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Romania
and Ukraine
, who were both employed in the city's garment industry, living in poverty on New York's Lower East Side
. His mother worked hard sewing piecework at home. Harry Gropper, Bill's father, was university-educated and fluent in 8 languages, but was unable to find employment in America in a field for which he was suited. This failure of the American economic system to make proper use of his father's talents doubtlessly contributed to William Gropper's lifelong antipathy to capitalism.
Gropper's alienation was accentuated when on March 24, 1911 he lost a favorite aunt in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire
, a disaster which resulted from locked doors and non-existent exits in a New York sweatshop. Some 146 workers burned or jumped to their deaths on that day in what was New York's greatest human catastrophe prior to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Young Bill's interest in art began at a young age. As a child of 6 young William took chalk to the sidewalks, decorating the concrete with elaborate picture stories of cowboys and Indians that extended around the block. As a child on the way to school, Bill used to lug bundles of his mother's piecework sewing to the sweatshop
s by which she was employed.
At age 13, Bill took his first art instruction at the radical Ferrer School, where he studied under George Bellows
and Robert Henri
.
In 1913, Bill graduated from public school, earning a medal in art and a scholarship to the National Academy of Design. The strong-willed Gropper refused to conform at the academy, however, and was subsequently expelled. He attempted to attend High School that fall, but finances prevented his attendance and he was forced to seek work to help support his family. He worked as an assistant in a clothing store, earning $5 a wee
In 1915, Bill showed a portfolio of his work to Frank Parsons
, the head of the New York School of Fine and Applied Arts. The work so impressed Parsons that Gropper was offered a scholarship to the school. Gropper continued to work reduced hours for reduced wages in the clothing store while he continued his artistic education. In the subsequent two years, Bill gained recognition and awards for his work.
In 1917, Gropper was offered a position on the staff of the New York Tribune
, where he over the next several years he earned a steady income doing drawings for the paper's special Sunday feature articles. At this time, the politically radical Gropper was brought into the orbit of original and innovative artists around the left wing New York monthly, The Masses
. After The Masses was banned from the US Mail in 1917, due to its unflinching anti-militarism, Gropper joined artists like Robert Minor
, Maurice Becker
, Art Young
, Lydia Gibson
, Hugo Gellert
, and Boardman Robinson
in contributing to its successor, The Liberator.
Gropper also contributed his art to The Revolutionary Age, a revolutionary socialist weekly edited by Louis C. Fraina
and (in later issues) John Reed, a publication which narrowly predated the establishment of the American Communist Party
, as well as to The Rebel Worker, a magazine of the Industrial Workers of the World
, an anarcho-syndicalist union.
briefly as an oiler on a United Fruit Company freight boat. He left the ship in Cuba and spent some time there observing life and working as a supervisor on a railroad construction detail. He was forced to return home sooner than expected, however, owing to the terminal illness of his father.
In January 1921, editor Max Eastman
formally made Bill a special contributor and member of the staff of The Liberator. His time at the publication was not harmonious however, as many of the unpaid and underpaid artists and writers greatly resented Eastman, who collected a relatively opulent paycheck of $75 a week for, as Gropper later recalled, "lying on a couch and composing poetry and reading books." A little coup was short-circuited in the end by Eastman's own determination to give up his post so as to visit Soviet Russia in 1922, a decision no doubt accelerated by the magazine's growing financial woes. Floyd Dell
took over the editorial helm for the next year or so, with the publication soon coming under the financial and editorial umbrella of the Communist Party in a friendly takeover towards the end of that year.
In August 1921, Bill Gropper married Gladys Oaks, herself a contributor to The Liberator. The marriage proved to be short and turbulent, marked by the couple's collaboration to produce a book of verse and drawings called Chinese White, published in 1922. (According to Whittaker Chambers
, China White aced out his own submission during a national poetry contest in 1923. ) Early in 1924, Gladys became involved with another man and the pair decided to separate.
During the early 1920s, Gropper was a free lance contributor of work to such mainstream magazines as The Bookman
(for which he drew caricatures of authors), the liberal magazine The Dial
, and Frank Harris'
New Pearson's Magazine.
In the fall of 1924 Bill Gropper married his second wife, bacteriologist Sophie Frankle. Together, the two of them build a nine room stone house in Croton-on-Hudson, New York
, where they raised their family. Shortly after their marriage, the couple spent a year in the Soviet Union
, where Bill was employed briefly on the staff of the newspaper of the All-Union Communist Party
, Pravda
.
Despite his contributions to a vast array of communist publications, Gropper was never formally a member of the Communist Party USA
.
In 1927, Gropper went on a tour of Soviet Russia along with the novelists Sinclair Lewis
and Theodore Dreiser
in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Russian Revolution
.
During the second half of the 1930s, Gropper dedicated his art to the efforts to raise popular opposition to fascism
in Europe.
The lobby of the Freeport New York Post Office
features two murals by Gropper installed in 1938 and titled "Air Mail" and "Suburban Post in Winter." They are included in the listing of the property on the National Register of Historic Places
in 1989.
Due to his involvement with radical politics in the 1920s and 1930s, Gropper was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee
in 1953. The experience provided inspirational fodder for a series of fifty lithographs entitled the Caprichos.
Following World War II
, Gropper traveled to Poland
to attend the World Congress of Intellectuals for Peace
of 1948 in Wrocław. Afterwards, he decided to pay tribute to the Jews who died in the Holocaust by painting one picture on the theme of Jewish life each year.
at Manhasset, New York
, at the age of 79.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
cartoonist
Cartoonist
A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...
, painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, lithographer, and muralist. A committed radical
Political radicalism
The term political radicalism denotes political principles focused on altering social structures through revolutionary means and changing value systems in fundamental ways...
, Gropper is best known for the political work which he contributed to such left wing publications as The Revolutionary Age
Revolutionary Age
The Revolutionary Age was an American radical newspaper edited by Louis C. Fraina and published from November 1918 until August 1919. Originally the publication of Local Boston, Socialist Party, the paper evolved into the de facto national organ of the Left Wing Section of the Socialist Party which...
, The Liberator
The Liberator (magazine)
The Liberator was a monthly socialist magazine established by Max Eastman and his sister Crystal Eastman in 1918 to continue the work of The Masses, which was shut down by the wartime mailing regulations of the U.S. government. Intensely political, the magazine included copious quantities of art,...
, The New Masses
The New Masses
The "New Masses" was a prominent American Marxist publication edited by Walt Carmon, briefly by Whittaker Chambers, and primarily by Michael Gold, Granville Hicks, and Joseph Freeman....
, The Worker
Daily Worker
The Daily Worker was a newspaper published in New York City by the Communist Party USA, a formerly Comintern-affiliated organization. Publication began in 1924. While it generally reflected the prevailing views of the party, some attempts were made to make it appear that the paper reflected a...
, and The Morning Freiheit
Morgen Freiheit
The New York city-based Morgen Freiheit was a daily Yiddish language newspaper affiliated with the Communist Party, USA, founded by Moissaye Olgin in 1922. After the end of World War II the paper's editors developed criticisms of the Soviet Union and thereby clashed with the leaders of the...
.
Early life
William "Bill" Gropper was born to Harry and Jenny Gropper on December 3, 1897, in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, the eldest of 6 children. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
and Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
, who were both employed in the city's garment industry, living in poverty on New York's Lower East Side
Lower East Side
The Lower East Side, LES, is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is roughly bounded by Allen Street, East Houston Street, Essex Street, Canal Street, Eldridge Street, East Broadway, and Grand Street....
. His mother worked hard sewing piecework at home. Harry Gropper, Bill's father, was university-educated and fluent in 8 languages, but was unable to find employment in America in a field for which he was suited. This failure of the American economic system to make proper use of his father's talents doubtlessly contributed to William Gropper's lifelong antipathy to capitalism.
Gropper's alienation was accentuated when on March 24, 1911 he lost a favorite aunt in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City on March 25, 1911, was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city of New York and resulted in the fourth highest loss of life from an industrial accident in U.S. history...
, a disaster which resulted from locked doors and non-existent exits in a New York sweatshop. Some 146 workers burned or jumped to their deaths on that day in what was New York's greatest human catastrophe prior to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Young Bill's interest in art began at a young age. As a child of 6 young William took chalk to the sidewalks, decorating the concrete with elaborate picture stories of cowboys and Indians that extended around the block. As a child on the way to school, Bill used to lug bundles of his mother's piecework sewing to the sweatshop
Sweatshop
Sweatshop is a negatively connoted term for any working environment considered to be unacceptably difficult or dangerous. Sweatshop workers often work long hours for very low pay, regardless of laws mandating overtime pay or a minimum wage. Child labour laws may be violated. Sweatshops may have...
s by which she was employed.
At age 13, Bill took his first art instruction at the radical Ferrer School, where he studied under George Bellows
George Bellows
George Wesley Bellows was an American realist painter, known for his bold depictions of urban life in New York City, becoming, according to the Columbus Museum of Art, "the most acclaimed American artist of his generation".-Youth:Bellows was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio...
and Robert Henri
Robert Henri
Robert Henri was an American painter and teacher. He was a leading figure of the Ashcan School in art.- Early life :...
.
In 1913, Bill graduated from public school, earning a medal in art and a scholarship to the National Academy of Design. The strong-willed Gropper refused to conform at the academy, however, and was subsequently expelled. He attempted to attend High School that fall, but finances prevented his attendance and he was forced to seek work to help support his family. He worked as an assistant in a clothing store, earning $5 a wee
In 1915, Bill showed a portfolio of his work to Frank Parsons
Frank Parsons
Frank Parsons is known as the Father of Vocational Guidance. Although he was educated as an engineer at Cornell University, he wrote several books on social reform movements and articles related to women's suffrage, taxation, and education for all...
, the head of the New York School of Fine and Applied Arts. The work so impressed Parsons that Gropper was offered a scholarship to the school. Gropper continued to work reduced hours for reduced wages in the clothing store while he continued his artistic education. In the subsequent two years, Bill gained recognition and awards for his work.
In 1917, Gropper was offered a position on the staff of the New York Tribune
New York Tribune
The New York Tribune was an American newspaper, first established by Horace Greeley in 1841, which was long considered one of the leading newspapers in the United States...
, where he over the next several years he earned a steady income doing drawings for the paper's special Sunday feature articles. At this time, the politically radical Gropper was brought into the orbit of original and innovative artists around the left wing New York monthly, The Masses
The Masses
The Masses was a graphically innovative magazine of socialist politics published monthly in the U.S. from 1911 until 1917, when Federal prosecutors brought charges against its editors for conspiring to obstruct conscription. It was succeeded by The Liberator and then later The New Masses...
. After The Masses was banned from the US Mail in 1917, due to its unflinching anti-militarism, Gropper joined artists like Robert Minor
Robert Minor
Robert Berkeley "Bob" Minor was political cartoonist, a radical journalist, and a leading member of the American Communist Party.-Early life:...
, Maurice Becker
Maurice Becker
Maurice Becker was a radical political artist best known for his work in the 1910s and 1920s for such publications as The Masses and The Liberator.-Early years:...
, Art Young
Art Young
Arthur "Art" Young was an American cartoonist and writer. He is most famous for his socialist cartoons, especially those drawn for the left wing political magazine The Masses between 1911 and 1917.-Early Years:...
, Lydia Gibson
Lydia Gibson
Lydia Gibson was an American socialist illustrator who contributed work to The Masses, The Liberator, The Workers' Monthly, The New Masses, and other radical publications.-Early years:...
, Hugo Gellert
Hugo Gellert
Hugo Gellert was a Hungarian-American illustrator and muralist. A committed radical, much of Gellert's work is agitational in nature and distinctive in style, considered by some art critics as among the best political work of the first half of the 20th Century.-Early years:Hugo Gellert was born...
, and Boardman Robinson
Boardman Robinson
Boardman Robinson was a Canadian-American artist, illustrator and cartoonist.-Early years:Boardman Robinson was born September 6, 1876 in Nova Scotia, Canada. He spent his childhood in England and Canada, before coming to Boston in the first half of the 1890s...
in contributing to its successor, The Liberator.
Gropper also contributed his art to The Revolutionary Age, a revolutionary socialist weekly edited by Louis C. Fraina
Louis C. Fraina
Louis C. Fraina was a founding member of the American Communist Party in 1919. After running afoul of the Communist International in 1921 over the alleged misappropriation of funds, Fraina left the organized radical movement, emerging in 1930 as a left wing public intellectual by the name of Lewis...
and (in later issues) John Reed, a publication which narrowly predated the establishment of the American Communist Party
Communist Party USA
The Communist Party USA is a Marxist political party in the United States, established in 1919. It has a long, complex history that is closely related to the histories of similar communist parties worldwide and the U.S. labor movement....
, as well as to The Rebel Worker, a magazine of the Industrial Workers of the World
Industrial Workers of the World
The Industrial Workers of the World is an international union. At its peak in 1923, the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing, and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. Its membership declined dramatically after a 1924 split brought on by internal conflict...
, an anarcho-syndicalist union.
Gropper as radical artist
In 1920, Gropper went to CubaCuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
briefly as an oiler on a United Fruit Company freight boat. He left the ship in Cuba and spent some time there observing life and working as a supervisor on a railroad construction detail. He was forced to return home sooner than expected, however, owing to the terminal illness of his father.
In January 1921, editor Max Eastman
Max Eastman
Max Forrester Eastman was an American writer on literature, philosophy and society, a poet, and a prominent political activist. For many years, Eastman was a supporter of socialism, a leading patron of the Harlem Renaissance and an activist for a number of liberal and radical causes...
formally made Bill a special contributor and member of the staff of The Liberator. His time at the publication was not harmonious however, as many of the unpaid and underpaid artists and writers greatly resented Eastman, who collected a relatively opulent paycheck of $75 a week for, as Gropper later recalled, "lying on a couch and composing poetry and reading books." A little coup was short-circuited in the end by Eastman's own determination to give up his post so as to visit Soviet Russia in 1922, a decision no doubt accelerated by the magazine's growing financial woes. Floyd Dell
Floyd Dell
Floyd Dell was an American author and critic.-Biography:Floyd Dell was born in Barry, Illinois on June 28, 1887....
took over the editorial helm for the next year or so, with the publication soon coming under the financial and editorial umbrella of the Communist Party in a friendly takeover towards the end of that year.
In August 1921, Bill Gropper married Gladys Oaks, herself a contributor to The Liberator. The marriage proved to be short and turbulent, marked by the couple's collaboration to produce a book of verse and drawings called Chinese White, published in 1922. (According to Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers was born Jay Vivian Chambers and also known as David Whittaker Chambers , was an American writer and editor. After being a Communist Party USA member and Soviet spy, he later renounced communism and became an outspoken opponent later testifying in the perjury and espionage trial...
, China White aced out his own submission during a national poetry contest in 1923. ) Early in 1924, Gladys became involved with another man and the pair decided to separate.
During the early 1920s, Gropper was a free lance contributor of work to such mainstream magazines as The Bookman
The Bookman (New York)
The Bookman was a literary journal established in 1895 by Dodd, Mead and Company. It drew its name from the phrase, "I am a Bookman," by James Russell Lowell; the phrase regularly appeared on the cover and title page of the bound edition. It was purchased in 1918 by the George H. Doran Company. In...
(for which he drew caricatures of authors), the liberal magazine The Dial
The Dial
The Dial was an American magazine published intermittently from 1840 to 1929. In its first form, from 1840 to 1844, it served as the chief publication of the Transcendentalists. In the 1880s it was revived as a political magazine...
, and Frank Harris'
Frank Harris
Frank Harris was a Irish-born, naturalized-American author, editor, journalist and publisher, who was friendly with many well-known figures of his day...
New Pearson's Magazine.
In the fall of 1924 Bill Gropper married his second wife, bacteriologist Sophie Frankle. Together, the two of them build a nine room stone house in Croton-on-Hudson, New York
Croton-on-Hudson, New York
Croton-on-Hudson is a village in Westchester County, New York, United States. The population was 8,070 at the 2010 census. It is located in the town of Cortlandt, in New York City's northern suburbs...
, where they raised their family. Shortly after their marriage, the couple spent a year in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, where Bill was employed briefly on the staff of the newspaper of the All-Union Communist Party
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
, Pravda
Pravda
Pravda was a leading newspaper of the Soviet Union and an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991....
.
Despite his contributions to a vast array of communist publications, Gropper was never formally a member of the Communist Party USA
Communist Party USA
The Communist Party USA is a Marxist political party in the United States, established in 1919. It has a long, complex history that is closely related to the histories of similar communist parties worldwide and the U.S. labor movement....
.
In 1927, Gropper went on a tour of Soviet Russia along with the novelists Sinclair Lewis
Sinclair Lewis
Harry Sinclair Lewis was an American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. In 1930, he became the first writer from the United States to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humor, new types of...
and Theodore Dreiser
Theodore Dreiser
Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser was an American novelist and journalist of the naturalist school. His novels often featured main characters who succeeded at their objectives despite a lack of a firm moral code, and literary situations that more closely resemble studies of nature than tales of...
in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Russian Revolution
Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...
.
During the second half of the 1930s, Gropper dedicated his art to the efforts to raise popular opposition to fascism
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
in Europe.
The lobby of the Freeport New York Post Office
United States Post Office (Freeport, New York)
US Post Office-Freeport is a historic post office building located at Freeport in the town of Hempstead, Nassau County, New York, United States. It was built in 1932 and designed by consulting architects Tachau and Vought for the Office of the Supervising Architect. It is a two story,...
features two murals by Gropper installed in 1938 and titled "Air Mail" and "Suburban Post in Winter." They are included in the listing of the property on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
in 1989.
Due to his involvement with radical politics in the 1920s and 1930s, Gropper was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee
House Un-American Activities Committee
The House Committee on Un-American Activities or House Un-American Activities Committee was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. In 1969, the House changed the committee's name to "House Committee on Internal Security"...
in 1953. The experience provided inspirational fodder for a series of fifty lithographs entitled the Caprichos.
Following World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Gropper traveled to Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
to attend the World Congress of Intellectuals for Peace
World Congress of Intellectuals for Peace
The World Congress of Intellectuals for Peace convened in Wrocław, Poland on August 25-28, 1948, in the aftermath of the Second World War. Notable politicians, academics, and artists attended, including Pablo Picasso, Frédéric Joliot-Curie, Irène Joliot-Curie, Bertolt Brecht, Paul Éluard, Aldous...
of 1948 in Wrocław. Afterwards, he decided to pay tribute to the Jews who died in the Holocaust by painting one picture on the theme of Jewish life each year.
Later years
Gropper died January 6, 1977, from a myocardial infarctionMyocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
at Manhasset, New York
Manhasset, New York
Manhasset is a hamlet and neighborhood in Nassau County, New York, on the North Shore of Long Island. As of the United States 2010 Census, the population was 8,080....
, at the age of 79.
Selected publications by William Gropper
- Chinese White: Poems. With Gladys Oaks. New York: Melomine Publications, 1922.
- Alay Oop. New York: Coward-McCann, 1930.
- Gropper. New York: A.C.A. Gallery Publications, 1938.
- Your Brother's Blood Cries Out: Eight Drawings. [No City]: [No Publisher], c. 1944.
- The Little Tailor. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1955.
- Twelve Etchings. New York: Associated American Artists, 1965.
Selected publications about William Gropper
- August L. Feundlich, William Gropper: Retrospective. Los Angeles: W. Ritchie Press, 1968.
- Joseph Anthony Gahn, The America of William Gropper, Radical Cartoonist. PhD Dissertation, Syracuse University, 1966. Digital copy appears online in William Gropper Papers.
- Louis Lozowick, William Gropper. Philadelphia: Art Alliance Press, 1983.
- Patricia Phagan, William Gropper and "Freiheit": A Study of his Political Cartoons, 1924-1935. PhD Dissertation, City University of New York, 2000.
External links
- Gropper.com: The Life and Art of William Gropper
- Smithsonian Archives of American Art: William Gropper Papers, 1916-1983 (4,578 digital images of material relating to Gropper)
- Syracuse University William Gropper Papers 1918-1970 (primary source material)
- Comrades in Arms: William Gropper
- Focus In/ On William Gropper (Gustavus Adolphus CollegeGustavus Adolphus CollegeGustavus Adolphus College is a private liberal arts college affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America located in St. Peter, Minnesota, United States. A coeducational, four-year, residential institution, it was founded in 1862 by Swedish Americans. To this day the school is firmly...
)