William Gropper

Art Brokerage: William Gropper American Artist: b. 1897-1977. Gropper was born to Harry and Jenny Gropper in New York City, the eldest of six 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. Gropper was an American painter, illustrator, lithographer, muralist and activist. One of America's most prominent Social Realists, Gropper is known for his fiercely political cartoons, paintings and lithographs. At age 13 Gropper began studying art at the progressive Ferrer School in New York under Robert Henri and George Bellows. In 1917 Gropper was hired as a cartoonist for the New York Tribune and one of his first assignments was to illustrate an article on the International Workers of the World, a union also called the "Wobblies." During that time, Gropper's political illustrations filled the pages in most left-wing publications such as The New Masses, which he helped to establish in 1926. Throughout the 1930s, Gropper was employed by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Treasury's Relief Art Project to create murals for Federal buildings across America. Gropper was also instrumental in founding the John Reed Club, the Artists Union and the American Artists' Congress. In 1936 Gropper had his first one-man show of paintings at ACA Galleries. In 1938 ACA published a significant catalogue of his work. In 1943 Gropper was sent to Africa by the War Department Art Advisory Committee to document the war. Following the war, in 1944 Gropper won first prize in lithography at The Metropolitan Museum's exhibition Artists for Victory. In 1947 as support diminished after the WPA was dissolved, he was among the founding members of the Artists Equity Association. Listings wanted.