The sweat of their face
Subtitle: portraying American workers
By: David C. Ward and Dorothy Moss ; with an essay by John Fagg
Contributors: Moss, Dorothy, author; Fagg, John, 1977- contributor
Publisher: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press
Published: 2017
Language: eng
Number of pages: 223
ISBN-13: 9781588346056
Subjects: American Art; Exhibitions; Portraits; Themes, motives; Working class; Working class in art
Description: "Explores the visual history of American labor through portraiture by major American artists"--Provided by publisher.

"Work always has been a central construct in the United States, influencing how Americans measure their lives and assess their contribution to the wider society. Work also has been valued as the key element in the philosophy of self-improvement and social mobility that undergird the American value system. Yet work can also be something imposed upon people: it can be exploitative, painful, and hard. This duality is etched into the faces of the people depicted in the portraits showcased in The Sweat of Their Face: Portraying American Workers. This companion volume to an exhibition at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery examines working-class subjects as they appear in artworks by artists including Winslow Homer, Elizabeth Catlett, Danny Lyon, and Shauna Frischkorn. This richly illustrated book charts the rise and fall of labor from the empowered artisan of the eighteenth century through industrialization and the current American business climate, in which industrial jobs have all but disappeared. It also traces the history of work itself through its impact on the men and women whose laboring bodies are depicted. The Sweat of Their Face is a powerful visual exploration of the inextricable ties between American labor and society."--Amazon.
Notes: "In association with the National Portrait Gallery".

"Published to accompany an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC"--Colophon.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Foreword / -- Kim Sajet, -- director, National Portrait Gallery -- Introduction / -- David C. Ward; title: The face of labor: portraying the American worker  -- David C. Ward; title: Unit and gross: picturing individual workers and collective labor  -- John Fagg; title: The worker in the art museum -- Dorothy Moss-- Catalogue.