Linoleum cut on tissue-thin Japan paper, 1944. 305x229 mm; 12x9 inches, wide (1- to 1 1/4 inch) margins. Artist's proof, aside from an edition of approximately 12. A superb, richly inked impression, with inky smudges in the margins.
Provenance: acquired directly from the artist; Hartwell Yeargans, New York; thence by descent to the current owner, private collection, New York.
The painter and printmaker Hartwell Yeargans (1915 - 2005) moved to New York in 1936 to join his older brother and artist James Yeargans, who was working on the WPA Harlem Hospital murals. In 1942, Charles White and Elizabeth Catlett also moved to Harlem. By 1944, the married couple were teaching at the George Washington Carver School in Harlem when White was drafted into the army.
We have found only two other impressions of this extremely scarce linoleum cut, one of Charles White's earliest prints. Gedeon recorded its title as "Worker" and found only two earlier linoleum cuts by the artist. One impression today is in the collection of the Williams College Museum of Art which provides us with the alternate title and date. A photograph of Norman Lewis seated under a framed impression of this print illustrates the retrospective catalogue Procession: The Art of Norman Lewis. Gedeon Eb3; Fine p. 4.
