Norman Lewis worked sporadically with several entities of the WPA. In 1935, he was one of the first instructors at the Harlem Community Art Center under the direction of Augusta Savage and funded by the Federal Art Project. Lewis later enrolled in the graphic division of the Federal Art Project in 1937 and created the lithograph The Soup Kitchen. Then Lewis, with fellow artist Rex Goreleigh, taught briefly at North Carolina A&T State University and at Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1938. But he soon returned North, unable to tolerate the segregation of the South. Finally in 1939, Lewis was on assignment for the FAP as the supervisor of a mural project at Andrew Jackson High School in Queens.
A very good, dark impression of this very scarce print; other known impressions are in the collection of the Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH and the North Carolina Central University Art Museum, Durham, NC. Fine pp. 123-127.
