Working Stiff by Ruth Kempster

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    I went and visited the Crocker Art Museum located in Sacramento, California. I was surprised with how many beautiful pieces of art were presented from so many different era's and locations. 

 After consideration, I choose to research and analyze the painting titled Working Stiff  by Ruth Miller Kempster. Miller was an American artist, born in 1904 and passed away in 1978. This painting was done with oil on the canvas, created in 1934. The subject of this painting involves the height of the Great Depression. The museum label stated, "Dominating the composition is a young man with a downward gaze. His strong, once-working hands, now seem to have little to do" (Crocker). This man in the painting is seemingly unemployed and exhausted from the toll the great depression provided. 

Working Stiff
By Ruth Miller Kempster 
Crocker Art Museum 
    I choose to focus my research on the era of the Great Depression, in order to get a better understanding of the theme behind this painting. The JSTOR article, "Revisiting the Great Depression" by Robert J. Samuelson, dives into the affects of the Great Depression on Americans. Samuelson states, "There is no precise definition of a depression; it's a term of art"
(SAMUELSON). This relates back to Ruth Kempster's inspiration for the painting because depression can be considered a "term of art", which is what Kempster expressed in her painting. She used her artistic eye, to show what the depression really looked like from a visual aspect. Stated in the article, "Generally speaking, it's a broad economic collapse that produces high unemployment from which there is no easy and obvious escape" (SAMUELSON). This feeling of no recovery from this deep economic crisis during the Great Depression is what Kempster was creating into art. The man painted seems to appear helpless and exhausted, which was what the modern American felt during this time. 

    My theme for the semester was what is the role of political power in the relationship between individuals (the people) and authority (the rulers)? This can be easily tied into the Working Stiff painting because "the working people" during the Great Depression felt powerless, as shown in the painting. However the people in power were not really affected during time time, while thousands of working citizens were losing their jobs and going into debt. This is what the Samuelson article describes, the feeling of being paralyzed by the fear of how you will provide for your family or yourself.  I found it incredibly interesting the way that this visual piece of art can entail a deeper meaning behind the emotion shown. Through researching the Great Depression era and examining it through the critical lens of my theme for the semester, it allowed me to better understand the powerless feeling Kempster was trying to get across.

I am not able to embed a youtube video with my computer, but click here is an article more about this piece!

Work Cited 

SAMUELSON, ROBERT J. “Revisiting the Great Depression.” The Wilson Quarterly (1976-), vol. 36, no. 1, 2012, pp. 36–43, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41484425. Accessed 14 May 2022. 

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