Fighting Wrongs

Helicline Fine Art presents a compelling range of works by prolific artist-activist William Gropper

Helicline Fine Art
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Throughout his life, William Gropper (1897-1977) used his artistic talents to protest social injustice. Born and raised in New York City, he grew up in poverty and left high school to work as a dishwasher and delivery boy. He eventually began a career in art and studied with Robert Henri and George Bellows from 1912 to 1915, leading Gropper to apply their realistic painting style to works that cast a sympathetic light on the underserved and denounced societal inequities.

William Gropper (1897-1977), Street Scene, ca. 1950. Oil on canvas, 36 x 60 in., signed lower left.

“I am interested in mankind,” Gropper has been quoted saying. “People create the landscape of my paintings. I fight wrongs. I fight in a creative sense. All my stuff is myself, passionately myself. I am involved with ideas and concepts.”

William Gropper (1897-1977), Horse Race, ca. 1945. Oil on canvas, 13½ x 22 in., signed lower left.

By 1919 Gropper had established a reputation as a political cartoonist through his work for the New York Tribune and was soon contributing to many left-wing publications from the Marxest magazine New Masses to mainstream Vanity Fair. Although best known for his works of political and social commentary, a new exhibition at Helicline Fine Art represents a broader cross-section of the artist’s repertoire spanning several decades of his career from the 1930s to the 1960s.

William Gropper (1897-1977), Strike, ca. 1934. Oil on canvas, 17½ x 26 in., signed lower left.

William Gropper: Works From His Estate, running through February 19, 2023, is comprised of three dozen paintings, drawings, cartoons and two bronze sculptures, all of which are available for acquisition through Helicline Fine Art.

The collection includes Gropper’s satirical senator paintings, images of women and men in daily life, industrial scenes, ballet and New York City scenes that highlight the artist’s talent above and beyond the more politically-charged work he became synonymous with—examples of which are also in the exhibit.

Below: William Gropper (1897-1977), Steel, ca. 1950. Oil on canvas, 18 x 26 in., signed lower left.

Gropper’s first gallery exhibition in 1936 at the newly-established ACA Galleries was met with such great success, the gallery invited him to do two solo shows the following year. In 1937, Gropper traveled west on a Guggenheim Fellowship and visited the Dust Bowl and the Hoover and Grand Coulee Dams, sketching studies for a series of paintings and a mural he painted for the Department of the Interior. That same year he had paintings purchased by both the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art.

William Gropper (1897-1977), Ballerina Bust, ca. 1955. Bronze, 3¼ x 6½ in.

From 1940 to 1945, while his work became increasingly sought-after, Gropper was preoccupied with anti-Nazi cartoons, pamphlets and war bond posters. In 1943, he was sent to Africa by the War Department Art Advisory Committee to visually depict the war front. The following year, he participated in the exhibition Artists for Victory at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, winning first prize in lithography.

William Gropper (1897-1977), Job Hunters, ca. 1925-26. Ink on paper, 12½ x 9½ in., signed lower left.

Gropper’s career took a downward turn during the anti-communist McCarthyism era of the 1950s. Gropper was personally subpoenaed to appear before the infamous House of Un-American Activities Committee, where he pled the Fifth Amendment. He was subsequently blacklisted and attacked for his refusal to cooperate with the committee, effectively ending his exhibitions and commissions.

Right: William Gropper (1897-1977), Self Portrait, ca. 1965. Oil on canvas, 20 x 24 in., signed lower left.

“What I remember about my grandfather is that he was always working; he was always busy saying something or setting something right on paper or canvas,” notes the artist’s grandson, Craig Gropper. “The blacklist quashed his career, but it didn’t affect his output. His art was his life right up to the end. It had to be made. And just when he lost the ability to draw and paint, he died.”