1939, O. Louis Guglielmi, "One Third of a Nation" -- Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York)
From the museum label: Guglielmi responded to the horrific living conditions, mass poverty, and general social unease brought about by the Great Depression with this somber work. Its title refers to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's second inaugural address, in which he declared, "I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.... The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." In the painting, coffins litter a city block lined with lifeless tenements, and a funereal wreath adorns the building at center. Guglielmi borrowed stylistic tactics from the Surrealists, using an exaggerated three-point perspective to heighten the uncanny melancholy of the scene.
1939, O. Louis Guglielmi, "One Third of a Nation" -- Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York)
From the museum label: Guglielmi responded to the horrific living conditions, mass poverty, and general social unease brought about by the Great Depression with this somber work. Its title refers to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's second inaugural address, in which he declared, "I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.... The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." In the painting, coffins litter a city block lined with lifeless tenements, and a funereal wreath adorns the building at center. Guglielmi borrowed stylistic tactics from the Surrealists, using an exaggerated three-point perspective to heighten the uncanny melancholy of the scene.