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| American Art as Reflection of Social Class in the 20th Century
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In 1945 when the war ended, America had emerged as one of two world superpowers. Although America had allied with the Soviet Union during the war, following the surrender of Germany the two countries sat as archenemies, democracy versus communism. The hostilities of these two nations would be demonstrated in third parties, such as Berlin, Korea, Cuba, and Vietnam, where both the United States and the Soviet Union attempted to influence the local government with the natural superiority of their form of government. The Cold War relied on the commitment of both the United States and the Soviet Union to each become number one in the world, as well as a balance of power, particularly in the arms race. Without a balance of power, the stronger of the two could have destroyed the other without fear of retribution.
The Cold War translated to a fear of anything resembling communism in the United States. Joseph McCarthy led the charge against communism, accusing hundreds in the early 1950s of communism or communist sympathies. There were few beyond McCarthy's accusations and few who were willing to speak in opposition to his views. McCarthyism also entered the art world, labeling the abstraction of Abstract Expressionists as "foreign" and subversive. McCarthyism symbolized the fear of communism present in America at the beginning of the 1950s and the complacency with which many American accepted threats of communism. It is unclear whether the conformity that characterizes the 1950s today was caused by a desire to blend in and avoid accusations of communism or, like the 1920s, an effort to recuperate from the effects of World War II. In either case, the outward conformity was marked by discontentment and alienation of "silent majorities," specifically women and African-Americans.
Jim Crow laws in the South had segregated and discriminated against African-Americans since the Reconstruction period following the Civil War. Federal laws regarding voting rights for African-Americans were bypassed using literacy tests, poll taxes, and the grandfather rule. After fighting for freedom and liberty in two world wars (although in segregated troops) and experiencing a desegregated Europe, African-Americans returned to the United States looking for the same rights they fought for. In 1948, President Truman called for the desegregation of the armed forces, a process that would take several years. Segregation, however, would remain legal throughout public and private spheres until 1954 when the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka that separate facilities were not equal. A 1955 Supreme Court ruling calling for the desegregation of public facilities "with all deliberate speed" would be necessary for the slow and painful process of desegregating the South to finally begin. The Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 demonstrated the discontent of African-Americans in the South during this period. Spurred by the arrest of Rosa Parks for refusing to give up her seat to a white customer, African-Americans throughout the city refused to ride the buses, organizing car pools or walking to their destinations instead. This boycott lasted for months until the discriminatory seating policy of African-Americans in the back of the bus was abandoned. The Montgomery bus boycott was the first in a series of nonviolent protests against segregation that would spread throughout the South during the 1950s and 1960s.
Elizabeth O'Neill Verner's Flower Girl was painted in the culture of prejudice and discrimination by whites that sparked protest among African Americans. Elizabeth Verner was a member of the upper class in Charleston, South Carolina. Born in 1883, she lived during the height of segregation and discrimination against African Americans. Well known regionally for her depictions of African American flower vendors in Charleston, Verner considered these women to be part of the charm of
Roy Lichtenstein, American, b. 1923, Painting in Gold Frame 6/60, 1984, lithograph, woodcut, screenprint, and collage on paper, Gift of the Friends of Art, 1986.005
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Charleston and stereotyped them in her art, instead of dealing with their personal situations and limited opportunities. Flower Girl is actually an image of an older African American woman dressed in working clothes holding a large basket of flowers. Only the woman is portrayed in this image, giving the viewer no context to understand this woman's life. From the slight smile on the woman's lips, it is clear that Verner saw the woman as content or at least resigned to her lot in life. Verner's image conveys no sympathy or understanding of the woman's position. From the title of the work, Flower Girl, when the image is in fact of a woman, to the artist's lack of understanding of this woman's life, Verner typifies white condescension towards African Americans in the first half of the 20th century.
The Civil Rights Movement was not the only movement to mark the 1960s. Violence, change, anxiety about the future, and a loss of innocence marked the decade itself. The election of John F. Kennedy as the nation's youngest president in 1960 reflected on the youthful nature of America and the possibility of a bright future. During Kennedy's short administration, however, the construction of the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and continued unrest across the country regarding civil rights demonstrated that the young, charismatic president would not be immune to the problems of his predecessors. Kennedy's assassination in 1963 marked the beginning of a loss of innocence for the American people. The Civil Rights Movement, Anti-War Movement, and the Counter Culture that would grow during the 1960s would all challenge accepted American institutions. The "silent majorities" that were discontent and quiet in the 1950s were no longer willing to remain silent, but began to organize and form a visual and vocal presence. This presence, however, was often not immediately recognized. For example, although Betty Freidan published The Feminine Mystique documenting the discontentment of housewives across America in 1963, the feminist movement did not start to gain ground until the late 60s and early 70s and effects of the feminist movement did not have a wide reaching influence until the 1980s.
Although Miriam Schapiro (b. 1923) got her start in art much before the 1970s, it was during this decade that she found an audience willing to take her seriously as a woman and an artist. Schapiro was instrumental in founding the pattern and decoration movement of the 1970s and the development of feminist art. The pattern and decoration movement rejected the minimalism and conceptualism of mainstream art and focused on returning sensuality to art. Schapiro, herself, sought to combine the traditional low art world of female crafts (sewing, embroidery, and weaving) with the more esteemed male sphere of art: painting, drawing, and sculpture. Schapiro's Kimino, 1976, combines a collage of fabric and paint on a large (60" x 50") canvas. The use of fabric, emblematic of female crafts, in Schapiro's art seeks to validate the traditional activities of women. Although men had deemed sewing and quilt making a low art or craft, Schapiro recognized the artistic merit in each venture and sought to memorialize, in her view, forgotten female artists. Schapiro's rise as an artist in the 1960s and 70s after twenty years as an unrecognized artist is closely connected to the rise of the feminist movement. Without increased value placed on the abilities of women by the art community and American society, Schapiro was likely to have remained in the shadow of her artist husband, Paul Brach. The feminist movement, however, not only provided inspiration for much of Schapiro's art, but also established an audience willing and eager to view a woman's artistic portrayal of the world around her.
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