Working-Class Girls Don’t Become Artists: Looking at Art and Class

Working-Class Studies pioneer Janet Zandy profiles nine artists whose work “aligns with the history and living conditions of working-class people”: Kathe Kollwitz, Elizabeth Catlett, Ruth Asawa, Marilyn Anderson, Milton Rogovin, Mark Rogovin, Jens S. Jensen, Ralph Fasanella, and Raymond Mason. Linking labor and art, Zandy reveals the class biases in systems of art curation, categorization, and expertise, and with her portraits opens “larger conversations about class and artistic formation, intent and accessibility.” For Zandy art is “not a rare fruit to be plucked by the chosen few [but] a human necessity and crucial for the sustenance of democracy.”