Workers. Charcoal on cream wove paper. 450x605 mm; 17 3/4x23 3/4 inches. Signed and dated in blue pencil, lower left recto. 1932.
Provenance: estate of the artist, by descent; private collection, New York.
Walinska was born in London to a family of activists; her father was a labor leader and her mother was a sculptor, poet and activist. Her family moved to Brooklyn in 1914 and she grew up in a home surrounded by the Russian intelligentsia in New York. When she was 12 she started her artistic studies at the National Academy of Design and the Art Students League. From 1926-30, she lived in Paris, studying art and exchibiting at the Salon des Independents.
Her return to New York coincided with the Great Depression, and during the WPA years she was an exhibit coordinator for the Federal Art Project and founded the Guild Art Gallery at 37 West 57th street where she gave Arshile Gorky (1904-1948) his own show and also exhibited many WPA artists like Chaim Gross (1902-1991) and Raphael Soyer (1899-1987). She also served as the Assistant Creative Director of the Contemporary Art Pavilion at the 1939 World's Fair.
