Sharrer worked downtown, near Manhattan’s Union Square, but shared with her Harlem peers a desire to celebrate “ordinary people.” “It is these distinguished-undistinguished players,” she said, “that moved and interested me.” Sharrer depicts American families presenting and reacting to well-known paintings, including Grant Wood’s iconic American Gothic (1930) and Pablo Picasso’s Girl before a Mirror (1932). In different ways, most of the artists she chose to represent here—including the French realist Jean-François Millet and the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera—were known for their sympathetic portrayals of working people.
"Collection 1940s—1970s", 2019
Gallery label from 2010.
A salute to American workers, this painting shows ordinary families presenting and reacting to well-known paintings including Grant Wood’s iconic American Gothic (1930) and Pablo Picasso's Girl Before the Mirror (1932). In different ways, most of the artists Sharrer chose here, including the French realist Jean-François Millet and the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, attempted to honor the dignity of working people.
Sharrer made Workers and Paintings for a mural competition sponsored by the Springfield Art Museum, in Massachusetts. The work won an honorable mention and was included in MoMA's landmark 1946 exhibition Fourteen Americans. The ten studies were based on photographs that Sharrer adapted for the painting, a method typical of her process. Many decades later, the poet John Ashbery praised her paintings, describing their meticulous style as "a collaboration between Norman Rockwell and the brothers van Eyck."
Explore more
Articles and videos
From MoMA Design Store
Installation views
We have identified this work in the following photos from our exhibition history.
Licensing
Artwork or archival images
If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA's collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations).
Audio and film clips
MoMA licenses archival audio and select out of copyright film clips from our film collection. At this time, MoMA produced video cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. All requests to license archival audio or out of copyright film clips should be addressed to Scala Archives at [email protected]. Motion picture film stills cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For access to motion picture film stills for research purposes, please contact the Film Study Center at [email protected]. For more information about film loans and our Circulating Film and Video Library, please visit Circulating Film and Video Library.
Text from a publication or the archives
If you would like to reproduce text from a MoMA publication, please email [email protected]. If you would like to publish text from MoMA's archival materials, please fill out this permission form and send to [email protected].
Feedback
This record is a work in progress. If you have additional information or spotted an error, please fill out this feedback form.