Dust
1933
20th Century
7 x 13 1/2 in. (17.8 x 34.3 cm)
Mervin Jules,
American,
(1912–1994)
Object Type:
PRINTS
Creation Place:
North America
Medium and Support:
Lithograph
Credit Line:
Purchased with funds provided by the Art Angels
Accession Number:
13-G-3582
Label for "American Scenes: WPA-Era Prints from the 1930s and 1940s", La Salle University Art Museum, March 12- May 30, 2014:
Born in Baltimore, Jules attended the Maryland Institute College of Art from 1932-1934, and he later studied at the Art Students League in New York City under Regionalist artist Thomas Hart Benton. Jules was an accomplished painter and printmaker whose artwork focused on Social Realist themes, such as the plight of the poor. He often employed satire and caricature to dramatize social issues in a style reminiscent of 19th-century artist Honoré Daumier.
Dust portrays a desolate landscape of the American Dust Bowl in the early 1930s—a landscape devoid of human presence with eroded soil blown over unused farm machinery. This print, made while Jules was a student in Baltimore, was exhibited in the first national exhibition of the American Artists’ Congress as part of 30 duplicate “socially-conscious” exhibitions held in 30 American cities in December 1936, with the activist agenda of encouraging contact between artists and their audiences and furthering the democratization of art.
Klare Scarborough
Director and Chief Curator, La Salle University Art Museum
Current Location:
In Storage
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