August–December 2022 Learning Guide
Clocking In Visions of Labor
How do we visualize labor? How can art contribute to, as well as challenge, our understanding of labor? This exhibition invites reflection on who engages in particular types of work and what kinds of jobs are valorized. It also encourages us to interrogate labor’s mental, physical, social, political, and economic effects.
Each gallery brings a unique focus to the subject of work through a lens such as gender, place, or material. Others look critically at the practice of labor or depict life beyond work. Together, they illuminate an expanded understanding of what it means to labor.
August–December 2022
Exhibition support is provided by Kristen and Geoff Cline, Melanie and Jon Gross, HixsonLied Endowment, Nebraska Arts Council, and Nebraska Cultural Endowment.
Visions of Labor Clocking In
The Washerwoman , from the American Etchings portfolio
TERRELLELIZABETH
RICHARD CORRELL
ALFRED MAURERHENRY
Moving Timbers
Clocking In Visions of Labor
Der Holzfaller [The Woodcutter]
HENRY FARRER
W. EUGENE SMITH
Straw Weaver, Juchitan , from the Amero Picture Book portfolio
Café Interior
Night Repairs
DAN RICO
KÄTHE KOLLWITZ
Scrubwoman
HODLERFERDINAND
EMILIO AMERO
The Spinner , from the Spanish Village series
LOUIS LOZOWICK
Subway Drillers
August–DecemberEPPINGFRANC2022DOROTHY
Woman Scrubbing
Working Woman with Earring
La Baratteuse [Woman Churning]
Miners
MILLETJEAN-FRANCOIS
GEORGE HERLICK L E BOIT
FAIRFIELD PORTER
Light Refreshments on 8th Avenue JOSEPH
Visions of Labor August–DecemberEUGÈNE2022ATGET Men’s Fashions , from the 20 Photographs by Eugène Atget portfolio ELIZABETH
BARBARA KRUGER
Untitled (Progress is Your Most Important Product)
Clocking In OLDS
Anne, Lizzie and Katie
Paving AARON DOUGLAS Window Cleaning SILVERMANBURTON Garment Workers
The Watering Tank CAMILLE
Femme Dans Un Potager [Woman in a Vegetable Garden]
EDWARD ARCENIO CHAVEZ PISSARRO
Campesino [Farmer]
Dressing Room No.
Agricultural Agent
1
DANCE
Labor
MANUEL ALVAREZ BRAVO
Making Hay
Tortillera with Child ROCKWELLNORMAN
The County
LYDIA FIGUEROA
Still Life #1 (Sewing Machine)
Clocking In Visions of
RAY
STUBERMARGUERITEPEARSON
Jasper
Beef
LYNN DANCE
JEAN CHARLOT
KNIGHTDAME2022LAURA
Processing Plant, Buffalo County
Sous les arbres [Under the Trees]
WINSLOW HOMER
Los Agachados [The Crouched Ones]
August–December
WILLIAM WHITSLAR FULLER
RAFAEL TUFIÑO
Jones, Omaha
LYNN
WAUNITA WILLIAMS
Y Ahora...Hacia Donde [And Now. . . Where to]
NOURSEELIZABETH
Sewing by the Fireplace
Savannah Cotton ExchangeSavannah, Georgia
RENEE COX
W. EUGENE SMITH Maude Callen
BOURKE-WHITEMARGARET
The Sunflower Quilting Bee at Arles
MARTHA ROSLER
JANE PETERSON
Clocking In Visions of Labor
Girl Knitting
PAUL SAMPLESTARRETT
WILL MENTOR
2022
Nurse-Midwife
Steel Lines, Fort Peck, Montana
Backdrops circa 1940s
PAXTONMCGREGORWILLIAM
IAN DAVIS
Mother of Us All , from the Queen Nanny of the Maroons series
LORNA SIMPSON
Man in Bistro, Paris
FAITH RINGGOLD
Files
Miners Resting
LUCAS FOGLIA
HARBUTTCHARLES
The Red Cross Center
The Three Sisters
Semiotics of the Kitchen
Jesús, José, and Luis Harvesting Turnips and Miner’s Lettuce, Heirloom Organic Gardens, California
August–December
Clocking In Visions of Labor
August–DecemberEUGÈNE2022ATGET
Rankin Patented Hay Stacker, Watson Ranch (Wheat Stack and Workers)
Fashion Center
Cotton Bowl
Faucheurs [Reapers], Somme , from the 20 Photographs by Eugène Atget portfolio
FRED BECKER
BEN SHAHN
ANALIA SABAN
THOMAS HART BENTON
John Henry Loading Cotton
Migratory Cotton Picker, Eloy, Arizona
CLARE LEIGHTON Haymaking
Cotton Pickers, Pulaski County, Arkansas
Boy Going to Work, Merrimac Mills, Huntsville, Alabama, Noon
Designed in France, Made in China, Clothing Tag
SOLOMON D. BUTCHER
Threshing
DOROTHEA LANGE
Summer’s Bounty (As Ye Sow)
DOROTHEA LANGE
International Ladies Garment Workers Union, Made in USA, Clothing Tag
Migratory Cotton Picker, Eloy, Pinal County, Arizona ROY DECARAVA
LEWIS W. HINE
ANALIA SABAN
DALE NICHOLS
HANK THOMASWILLIS
Young German Steelworker, Pittsburgh LEWIS W. HINE
Lavanderia #5 BISHOP
Office Girls ISABEL BISHOP Lunch Hour
Clocking
ROBERT DOISNEAU
Fragment II: Cattle Drive at Perdiz Creek Ranch (Reservoir), Marfa, Texas, from Silent General
The Park Bench Ave.
ISABEL
Oyster Shucker, Mississippi REGINALD MARSH
Sullivan’s Delivery Boy, South Carolina LEWIS W. HINE
AN-MY LÊ
Subway SALICRUPFERNANDO Luisa Capetillo 1883–1922
GLINTENKAMPHENDRIK Traffic, 7th
Boulangerie Rue de Poitou [Bakery on a Street in Poitou]
FERNANDEZCHRISTINA
In Visions of Labor August–DecemberLEWIS2022W.HINE
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FRANC DOROTHY EPPING
Alhambra, CA 1910–Pittsfield, MA 1983 Scrubwoman Cast stone, 1939 University of Nebraska–Lincoln Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust H-213.1940
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Der Holzfaller [The Woodcutter] Lithograph, circa 1910 University of Nebraska–Lincoln Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust H-1256.1968
Bern, Switzerland 1853–Geneva, Switzerland 1918
FERDINAND HODLER
Night Repairs
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University of Nebraska–Lincoln
Color lithograph, 1939
Allocation of the U.S. Government, Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration WPA-306.1943
Ludvinovka, Ukraine 1892–South Orange, NJ 1973
LOUIS LOZOWICK
KÄTHE KOLLWITZ
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H-351.1954
Konigsberg, Germany 1867–Moritzburg, Germany 1945 Working Woman with Earring Etching, AnnaUniversity1910ofNebraska–LincolnR.andFrankM.HallCharitable Trust
HENRY FARRER
The Washerwoman , from the American Etchings portfolio Etching, U-423.16.1963UniversityUniversity1877ofNebraska–LincolnCollection
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London, England 1843–New York, NY 1903
University of Nebraska–Lincoln
Allocation of the U.S. Government, Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration WPA-318.1943
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DAN RICO
Subway Drillers Wood engraving, 1937
Rochester, NY 1912–Los Angeles, CA 1985
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New York, NY 1868–New York, NY 1932 Café Interior Oil on canvas, 1904 Nebraska Art Association Thomas C. Woods Memorial N-119.1959
ALFRED HENRY MAURER
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Toledo, OH 1908–Death place unknown 1993 Woman Scrubbing Gouache on paper, circa 1935 University of Nebraska–Lincoln Allocation of the U.S. Government, Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration WPA-130.1943
ELIZABETH TERRELL
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Springfield, MO 1904–Oakland, CA 1990
Moving Timbers Color linocut, 1940
University of Nebraska–Lincoln Allocation of the U.S. Government, Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration WPA-350.1943
RICHARD CORRELL
The Spinner , from the Spanish Village series Gelatin silver print, 1950 Nebraska Art Association Purchased with the aid of funds from the National Endowment for the Arts N-409.1976
Wichita, KS 1918–Tucson, AZ 1978
W. EUGENE SMITH
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University of Nebraska–Lincoln University U-1713.13.1971Collection
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EMILIO AMERO
Straw Weaver, Juchitan , from the Amero Picture Book portfolio Gelatin silver print, 1940
Ixtlahuaca, Mexico 1901–Norman, OK 1976
EUGÈNE ATGET
Libourne, France 1857–Paris, France 1927
Men’s Fashions , from the 20 Photographs by Eugène Atget portfolio Gold toned gelatin silver print, 1925, printed 1956
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University of Nebraska–Lincoln Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust H-837.3.1963
ELIZABETH OLDS
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Minneapolis, MN 1896–Sarasota, FL 1991
Miners
Allocation of the U.S. Government, Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration WPA-309.1943
Color lithograph, 1937
University of Nebraska–Lincoln
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WPA-104.1943
EDWARD ARCENIO CHAVEZ
The Watering Tank Tempera on gesso masonite, circa 1937 – 1938
Wagonmound, NM 1917–Woodstock, NY 1995
University of Nebraska–Lincoln Allocation of the U.S. Government, Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration
Charlotte Amalie, Virgin Islands 1830–Paris, France 1903 Femme Dans Un Potager [Woman in a Vegetable Garden] Etching and aquatint, circa 1880 University of Nebraska–Lincoln Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust H-835.1963
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CAMILLE PISSARRO
JEAN-FRANCOIS MILLET
Gruchy, France 1814–Barbizon, France 1875 La Baratteuse [Woman Churning] Etching, circa 1855 University of Nebraska–Lincoln Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust H-822.1963
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FAIRFIELD PORTER
Winnetka, IL 1907–Southampton, NY 1975
Anne, Lizzie and Katie Oil on canvas, 1958 Nebraska Art Association Thomas C. Woods Memorial N-142.1962
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Light Refreshments on 8th Avenue Gelatin silver print, circa 1935
GEORGE HERLICK
University of Nebraska–Lincoln Allocation of the U.S. Government, Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration U-1994.1943
Birth and death place unknown–active 1930s
New York, NY 1907–Walnut Creek, CA 2002
JOSEPH L E BOIT
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Paving Lithograph, 1937
University of Nebraska–Lincoln Allocation of the U.S. Government, Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration WPA-308.1943
AARON DOUGLAS
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Topeka, KS 1899–Nashville, TN 1979
Window Cleaning Oil on canvas, 1935 Nebraska Art Association N-40.1936
BURTON SILVERMAN
born Brooklyn, NY 1928
Garment Workers
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Color lithograph, 1960–1963
Printed by Drum Lithographer, published by Collectors Graphics, Inc. University of Nebraska–Lincoln Gift of Michael and Kim Sherman U-4818.1996
born Newark, NJ 1945
BARBARA KRUGER
Untitled (Progress is Your Most Important Product) Black and white photograph, 1984 University of Nebraska–Lincoln Gift of Wil J. and Sally Hergenrader U-5644.2011
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H-1391.1970
DAME LAURA KNIGHT
Long Eaton, England 1877–London, England 1970
Dressing Room No. 1 Aquatint, AnnaUniversity1923ofNebraska–LincolnR.andFrankM.HallCharitable Trust
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H-2577.1983
WILLIAM WHITSLAR FULLER born Cleveland, OH 1948
Savannah Cotton Exchange - Savannah, Georgia Gelatin silver print, 1982 University of Nebraska–Lincoln Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust
Making Hay Wood engraving, 1872 University of Nebraska–Lincoln Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust H-2099.1975
WINSLOW HOMER
Boston, MA 1836–Prouts Neck, ME 1910
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Paris, France 1898–Honolulu, HI 1979
JEAN CHARLOT
Tortillera with Child Color lithograph, 1941 University of Nebraska–Lincoln Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust H-533.1959
University of Nebraska–Lincoln Gift of Nathan Gold U-563.1969
NORMAN ROCKWELL
New York, NY 1894–Stockbridge, MA 1978
The County Agricultural Agent Oil on canvas, 1947–1948
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Beef Processing Plant, Buffalo County Gelatin silver print, 1976 University of Nebraska–Lincoln Gift of the U-2039.1977artist
born Los Angeles, CA 1949
LYNN DANCE
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Jasper Jones, Omaha Gelatin silver print, circa 1976 University of Nebraska–Lincoln Gift of the U-2025.1977artist
born Los Angeles, CA 1949
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LYNN DANCE
University of Nebraska–Lincoln Gift of the Ray Family U-5441.1998
Stella, NE 1896–Lincoln, NE 1974
Still Life #1 (Sewing Machine) Oil on canvas, date unknown
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WAUNITA WILLIAMS RAY
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Mexico City, Mexico 1902–Mexico City, Mexico 2002
MANUEL ALVAREZ BRAVO
H-2018.1975
Los Agachados [The Crouched Ones]
University of Nebraska–Lincoln
Gelatin silver print, 1934
Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust
University of Nebraska–Lincoln
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New York, NY 1922–San Juan, Puerto Rico 2008
Y Ahora...Hacia Donde [And Now. . . Where to] Silkscreen, 1962
The Gloria Rodriguez Calero Collection of Puerto Rican Works on Paper U-6069.2012
RAFAEL TUFIÑO
ELIZABETH NOURSE
Mount Healthy, OH 1859–Paris, France 1938
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Sous les arbres [Under the Trees] Oil on canvas, 1902
University of Nebraska–Lincoln Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Collection H-59.1928
University of Nebraska–Lincoln
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Campesino [Farmer] Woodcut, 1971
birth and death unknown
The Gloria Rodriguez Calero Collection of Puerto Rican Works on Paper U-5818.2012
LYDIA FIGUEROA
Sewing by the Fireplace Oil on canvas, date unknown Nebraska Art Association
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MARGUERITE STUBER PEARSON
Philadelphia, PA 1898–Rockport, MA 1978
Gift of an anonymous donor in honor of Lorraine LeMar Rohman N-678.1986
PAUL STARRETT SAMPLE
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University of Nebraska–Lincoln
Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust H-168.1937
Miners Resting Oil on canvas, 1935
Louisville, KY 1896–Norwich, VT 1974
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WILLIAM MCGREGOR PAXTON
Baltimore, MD 1869–Boston, MA 1941
Gift of Beatrice D. Rohman N-647.1983
Girl Knitting Oil on canvas, 1919 Nebraska Art Association
Acrylic on paper, 2007 Sheldon Art Association Gift of Robert and Victoria Northrup S-879.2012
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IAN DAVIS
born Indianapolis, IN 1972 Files
Nurse-Midwife Maude Callen Gelatin silver print, 1951 Nebraska Art Association
Purchased with the aid of funds from the National Endowment for the Arts N-410.1976
W. EUGENE SMITH
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Wichita, KS 1918–Tucson, AZ 1978
Originally published in the photo essay “Nurse Midwife” in the December 3, 1951, issue of Life magazine, this photograph speaks to multiple kinds of labor. At the center, a newborn baby works to fill his lungs with his first breaths of air. The mother, still attached to her child by the umbilical cord, lies mostly out of the frame, exhausted after laboring for more than twelve hours under the supervision of midwife Phoebe Gadsden (left) and nurse midwife Maude Callen (right). Photojournalist W. Eugene Smith captured this scene during the two and a half months he spent following Callen as she cared for the several thousand individuals living in impoverished communities in a four-hundred-mile area of rural South Carolina known as Hell Hole Swamp.
In 1951, when this photograph was taken, Callen was one of only nine trained nurse midwives in South Carolina and three hundred in the nation. She often worked sixteen-hour days, providing all kinds of medical assistance and community support. It is estimated that Callen delivered between six and eight hundred babies during her forty-eight-year career.
W. EUGENE SMITH Nurse-Midwife Maude Callen
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Camden, NJ 1935–Monteagle, TN 2015
CHARLES HARBUTT
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Gelatin silver print, 1975 Sheldon Art Association Gift of John and Daryl Lillie S-1141.2017
Man in Bistro, Paris
In the center of this candid shot, a man holding a magazine takes a break from reading and glances askance at the dish a woman is bringing to his table. The woman, recognizable as a waitress by her apron, appears to serve the man from two sides, as her body is reflected in the mirror on the right side of the photograph. The faces of other diners can also be seen in the mirrors of this Parisian bistro, where moments of labor and rest Bistroscoexist.inParis
date back to the nineteenth century Industrial Revolution, when migrants from south-central France flocked to the capital in search of work. Some women began serving coffee, wine, and cheap, hearty food to supplement their husbands’ low-paying wages from jobs such as delivering coal and carrying water for public baths. Bistros later became cultural and intellectual hubs, still providing affordable food and drink and a welcoming atmosphere.
CHARLES HARBUTT Man in Bistro, Paris
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Backdrops circa 1940s Diptych: screen print on felt, 1998 University of Nebraska–Lincoln Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust
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H-3100.A-B.1998
LORNA SIMPSON born New York, NY 1960
Through this juxtaposition of images, Simpson simultaneously highlights the marginalization, achievements, and lived experiences of these women and many others.
In the image on the right, the famous actress and singer Lena Horne and a bass player stand out against a dark backdrop scattered with lights on the set of the 1943 film I Dood It . Horne, one of the first Black performers signed to a longterm contract by a major Hollywood film studio, appeared in the film’s musical numbers, which were cut to appease racist viewers when the movie screened in the South.
For this work, Lorna Simpson screen printed on felt two images from found photographs. On the left, an unknown young woman poses with a cut-out moon and stars against a dark backdrop. The inscription tells us she is seated in a photographer’s studio in the 1940s.
LORNA SIMPSON Backdrops circa 1940s
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Steel Lines, Fort Peck, Montana Gelatin silver print, 1936 University of Nebraska–Lincoln Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust H-2152.1976
MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE
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New York, NY 1904–Stamford, CT 1971
MARGARET
Widely known for her industrial subjects, Margaret Bourke-White was the ideal photographer to chronicle the New Deal era. In 1936 she joined the staff of Life magazine as a photojournalist and was sent to eastern Montana to document the construction of the Fort Peck Dam, a Public Works Administration project that employed over ten thousand workers at its peak. Such large-scale undertakings became symbols of government building initiatives and progress in the face of economic uncertainty.
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BOURKE-WHITE Steel Lines, Fort Peck, Montana
Taken while looking up at the structure, this image shows how modern human experience is intertwined with large-scale industrial work. The men climb up, stand in, and sit on the massive steel lines, interrupting the geometric pattern of radiating spokes and circles that are a part of what is still the largest hydraulically filled dam in the United States.
born Colgate, Jamaica 1960
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RENEE COX
Mother of Us All , from the Queen Nanny of the Maroons series Digital inkjet print on watercolor paper, 2004 Sheldon Art Association Purchased with funds from the Sheldon Forum S-870.2010
RENEE COX
Mother of Us All , from the Queen Nanny of the Maroons series
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This photograph is part of a series in which Renee Cox enacts the role of Queen Nanny, an eighteenth-century leader of the Jamaican Maroons who fought against the island’s British colonizers. The Jamaican Maroons were communities of enslaved Africans and local-born enslaved people who escaped from the plantations and fled to the mountains and forests throughout Jamaica.
In this image, which was taken in an area where descendants of the Jamaican Maroons still live, Cox sits on the edge of a wooden porch. She looks directly out of the picture plane at the viewer as if to assert her role as mother to the six young children who stand, sit, and crouch behind her, and who represent “us all.” Indeed, as Jamaica’s only female national hero, the legend and spirit of Queen Nanny continues to be a symbol of freedom, strength, and unity for her people.
University of Nebraska–Lincoln H. Y. Thomson Fund
U-4965.1998
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FAITH RINGGOLD
The Sunflower Quilting Bee at Arles Color lithograph on white Rives BFK paper, 1996
born New York, NY 1930
FAITH RINGGOLD
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The figure in the lower left is Willia Marie Simone, a fictional character created by Ringgold, who moves to Paris in the early twentieth century to become an artist and businesswoman. The women appear to look skeptically at painter Vincent van Gogh, standing on the right side of the composition. While Ringgold appropriates the sunflower imagery with which van Gogh is associated, she centers the women and their efforts here.
The Sunflower Quilting Bee at Arles
This colorful lithograph celebrates the contributions of eight important women to abolition, civil rights, and women’s rights. The group is shown participating in a quilting bee, a social gathering of women centered around the traditionally female artform—a medium for which Faith Ringgold is well known. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder, from upper left, the women are Madam C. J. Walker, Sojourner Truth, Ida B. Wells, Fannie Lou Hamer, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Mary McLeod Bethune, and Ella Baker.
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The Red Cross Center Gouache and charcoal on paper, circa 1917 Nebraska Art Association Gift of Beatrice Rohman N-602.1982
JANE PETERSON
Elgin, IL 1876–Leawood, KS 1965
Peterson created several war-themed paintings during this period that she exhibited, sold, or donated to promote the Red Cross and the sale of Liberty Bonds.
Jane Peterson’s The Red Cross Center depicts a common scene in the United States during World War I. The American Red Cross provided invaluable aid to soldiers abroad through the collection and distribution of funds and supplies. In this image, Peterson depicts a Red Cross center with women busily rolling bandages and assembling supply packages. By using a dominant color palette of white and composing her scene with clearly defined space and distinct workstations, she portrays the Red Cross and the workers as clean and organized.
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JANE PETERSON The Red Cross Center
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born Brooklyn, NY 1943 Semiotics of the Kitchen Video, University1975of Nebraska–Lincoln Olga N. Sheldon Acquisition Trust U-5588.2010
MARTHA ROSLER
Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols and their meanings. In this 1975 video, Martha Rosler filmed herself in the style of televised cooking shows, proceeding through an alphabet of ordinary kitchen utensils. Yet, rather than demonstrating how they might be used in the preparation of food, she instead presents each object to the audience through gestures of frustration, anger, resentment, and aggression. Rosler has said of the unnamed person she performs: “as she speaks, she names her own oppression.” As such, Rosler uses one set of symbols—letters of the English alphabet—to identify common objects as signs that suggest the kitchen is an oppressive domestic space that keeps women in a prescribed social role.
MARTHA ROSLER Semiotics of the Kitchen
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born Longmeadow, MA 1958
The Three Sisters Lithograph, chine collé, and screenprint, 1997 University of Nebraska–Lincoln Gift of Gallery Friends U-4939.1998
WILL MENTOR
The Three Sisters
The title of this print refers to three crops— corn, squash, and beans—that have long been cultivated together by many Native American groups. Grown in close proximity over a season, each plant benefits from the other two: corn provides stalks for vines to climb, beans pull nitrogen from the air to fertilize the soil, and squash spread along the ground, creating mulch and preventing weed growth. Here, Will Mentor depicts varieties of the Three Sisters on what appears to be a page from a gardener’s sketchbook, including phrases, diagrams, and a list of personages that suggest a historically inspired attempt at contemporary sustainable farming.
WILL MENTOR
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LUCAS FOGLIA
born Long Island, NY 1983 Jesús, José, and Luis Harvesting Turnips and Miner’s Lettuce, Heirloom Organic Gardens, California Pigment print, 2011
University of Nebraska–Lincoln Robert E. Schweser and Fern Beardsley Schweser Acquisition Fund through the University of Nebraska Foundation U-6762.2018
Lucas Foglia began his Human Nature series in 2006 but was compelled to take a deeper look in 2012 after Hurricane Sandy affected his family farm located outside of New York City. This came with the realization that “... there is no place on Earth unaltered by people.... [The series] Human Nature focuses on our current relationship with nature.” Agriculture and the tending of the land is one facet of that relationship which Foglia explores in this photograph.
Three men walk along a muddy dirt road on a farm, carrying large produce crates. Jesús, José, and Luis, as the title identifies them, are dressed in protective rain gear in deference to the heavy grey clouds in the sky. The sunlight coming in from the left of the image hints that the rain is ending, though it is unclear if the workday for the three men is ending as well, or perhaps just beginning.
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Jesús, José, and Luis Harvesting Turnips and Miner’s Lettuce, Heirloom Organic Gardens, California
LUCAS FOGLIA
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Faucheurs [Reapers], Somme , from the 20 Photographs by Eugène Atget portfolio Gold-toned gelatin silver print, 1890/1898, printed 1956
University of Nebraska–Lincoln Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust H-837.18.1963
EUGÈNE ATGET
Libourne, France 1857–Paris, France 1927
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Summer’s Bounty (As Ye Sow) Oil on canvas, 1941 Nebraska Art Association Gift of Miller & Paine N-53.1945
DALE NICHOLS
David City, NE 1904–Sedona, AZ 1995
Rankin Patented Hay Stacker, Watson Ranch (Wheat Stack and Workers) Gelatin silver print, date unknown University of Nebraska–Lincoln Gift of the Nebraska Historical Society U-2373
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SOLOMON D. BUTCHER
Burton, WV 1856–Greeley, CO 1927
CLARE LEIGHTON
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London, England 1898–Woodbury, CT 1989 Haymaking Wood engraving, 1932 University of Nebraska–Lincoln James E. M. and Helen Thomson Acquisition Trust U-3754.1985
THOMAS HART BENTON
Neosho, MO 1889–Kansas City, MO 1975
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Threshing Lithograph, 1941 Nebraska Art Association Jean Rathburn Faulkner Memorial N-732.1992
EUGÈNE ATGET
SOLOMON D. BUTCHER
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These artworks present the harvesting and processing of hay through different time periods and media. The works by Dale Nichols and Eugène Atget seem idyllic and do not feature tools more advanced than a scythe. As agricultural technology developed, the efficiency of harvesting increased and the required manpower decreased. The prints by Clare Leighton and Thomas Hart Benton show the mechanization of harvesting hay and threshing grain with the inclusion of machinery that dominates the visual field.
THOMAS HART BENTON Threshing
DALE NICHOLS Summer’s Bounty (As Ye Sow)
Rankin Patented Hay Stacker, Watson Ranch (Wheat Stack and Workers)
Solomon D. Butcher’s photograph illustrates the continued involvement of men and animals, but also the large amounts of hay that could be harvested with the aid of new innovations in farming equipment. Together, these works demonstrate how representations of agricultural labor can have varied points of view, highlighting peaceful farm scenes or back-breaking work.
CLARE LEIGHTON Haymaking
Faucheurs [Reapers], Somme , from the 20 Photographs by Eugène Atget portfolio
born Buenos Aires, Argentina 1980
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ANALIA SABAN
International Ladies Garment Workers Union, Made in USA, Clothing Tag Mixografia® print on handmade paper, 2019 Printed by Mixografia®, Los Angeles, CA University of Nebraska–Lincoln Robert E. Schweser and Fern Beardsley Schweser Acquisition Fund, through the University of Nebraska Foundation U-6895.2020
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ANALIA SABAN
born Buenos Aires, Argentina 1980
Designed in France, Made in China, Clothing Tag Mixografia® print on handmade paper, 2019 Printed by Mixografia®, Los Angeles, CA University of Nebraska–Lincoln Joell J. Brightfelt Art Acquisition Fund, through the University of Nebraska Foundation U-6894.2020
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International Ladies Garment Workers Union, Made in USA, Clothing Tag
The International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) was founded in 1900 in New York City. By the mid-twentieth century, when the union gained safer labor conditions, decent wages, and benefits for its members, many manufacturers had moved to the South where there were no unions. Later, the garment industry shifted much of its production to countries that permitted greater exploitation of human labor and fewer safety controls—as one of Saban’s clothing tags states, “Designed in France, [but] Made in China.” In response to an increase in imported goods in the 1970s, unions such as the ILGWU appealed to American consumers’ patriotism by adding the words “Made in USA” to their label, which was sewn into union-made garments, and launching their “Look for the Label” advertising campaign.
ANALIA SABAN
Analia Saban created these two prints in collaboration with Mixografia, a fine arts printer and publisher based in Los Angeles, California. By reconstructing actual clothing labels as handmade paper prints at a dramatically enlarged scale, Saban reveals the tags to be more than utilitarian fragments of garments that are mass produced and attached to clothing items by mechanical processes. In particular, they call attention to the larger context of the textile and fashion industry as well as to labor conditions and the global circulation of goods.
ANALIA SABAN
Designed in France, Made in China, Clothing Tag
University of Nebraska–Lincoln Allocation of the US Government, Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration WPA-323.1943
John Henry Loading Cotton Wood engraving, 1935–1942
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FRED BECKER
Oakland, CA 1913–Amherst, MA 2004
wood engraving, a muscular, shirtless, barefoot John Henry carries a huge bale of cotton on his right shoulder across a paddle steamer’s gangplank, where a man waits, his mouth agape. Partially visible on a building behind John Henry’s left shoulder are the words “Bank Trust Savings” and a large dollar sign adorns the top of a church steeple. While Becker’s John Henry is not a steel driving man, he nonetheless represents tensions between human laborers and the demands of capitalism.
American folk hero John Henry was a formerly enslaved Black man and railroad worker. He performed the difficult, dangerous work of manually hammering a steel drill into rock to make holes for the explosives that blasted tunnels through mountains. According to legend, he won a drilling race against a steampowered drill but then died, hammer in hand, from exhaustion or a burst heart. The man who defeated a machine became a symbol for many cultural movements, including labor, which celebrated John Henry as a means of emphasizing class solidarity for working people, regardless of race or national Inbackground.FredBecker’s
FRED BECKER
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John Henry Loading Cotton
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BEN SHAHN
Cotton Pickers, Pulaski County, Arkansas Gelatin silver print, 1935, printed circa 1936
University of Nebraska–Lincoln Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust H-2743.1986
Kovno, Lithuania 1898–New York, NY 1969
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Migratory Cotton Picker, Eloy, Arizona Gelatin silver print, 1940, printed 1965
University of Nebraska–Lincoln Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust H-1062.1965
DOROTHEA LANGE
Hoboken, NJ 1895–San Francisco, CA 1965
DOROTHEA LANGE
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Hoboken, NJ 1895–San Francisco, CA 1965
Migratory Cotton Picker, Eloy, Pinal County, Arizona Gelatin silver print, 1940, printed 1965 University of Nebraska–Lincoln Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust H-1063.1965
In Arizona, Lange focused her attention on migratory agricultural laborers toiling within the state’s large-scale cotton industry. Corporations leased their land, which was watered by irrigation canals, to local growers who depended on low-paid seasonal migratory laborers to work in the fields. Lange’s closely cropped portrait of a man partially covering his face with his open, rough-skinned hand, reveals the physical toll of picking individual cotton bolls from their sharp-edged pods.
BEN SHAHN
DOROTHEA LANGE
Five years before Lange’s photographs, Shahn captured an image of children laboring in prickly cotton fields in Arkansas. The long bags into which they put the picked cotton drag behind them. Aware of the historical connection between cotton and the enslaved individuals forced to work with the crop, Shahn sought to capture scenes whose content would “help the underprivileged” and serve “only one purpose—a moral one.”
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Cotton Pickers, Pulaski County, Arkansas
DOROTHEA LANGE
Migratory Cotton Picker, Eloy, Arizona
Migratory Cotton Picker, Eloy, Pinal County, Arizona
Working for various New Deal agencies, photographers and artists such as Dorothea Lange and Ben Shahn produced hundreds of thousands of prints that recorded life in America during the Great Depression. Both Lange and Shahn were deeply committed to an art of social responsibility, visible in their images of cotton pickers shown here.
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New York, NY 1919–New York, NY 2009
ROY DECARAVA
Fashion Center
Gelatin silver print, 1962 University of Nebraska–Lincoln Catherine M. Johnsen Acquisition Fund U-687.1970
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“I’d gotten out of the garment center, and that was the place where everybody worked. Cats used to call it a ‘slave.’ A guy who worked in the garment center wouldn’t say he had a job; he’d say, ‘Man, like, I got a slave.’ That was what it amounted to. […] I had seen old men down there […] They looked like they were about sixty years old, but they were still pushing trucks through the snow.”
ROY DECARAVA Fashion Center
Roy DeCarava came of age during the Harlem Renaissance and was deeply affected by his time serving in the Army during World War II, stationed in the Jim Crow South. In 1958 he moved to a fourth-floor loft in New York City’s garment district, where he observed and photographed the laborers who performed the heavy, essential work of transporting materials and goods. Author Claude Brown wrote about these backbreaking jobs that were often filled by Black men in his 1965 book Manchild in the Promised Land :
HANK WILLIS THOMAS
born Plainfield, NJ 1976 Cotton Bowl Digital chromogenic print, 2011 University of Nebraska–Lincoln Olga N. Sheldon Acquisition Trust U-6506.2015
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The intersection of college athletics and labor becomes more complex when one considers that students are unpaid for labor that generates millions of dollars for their institutions. Walter Byers, the first executive director of the NCAA, called the studentathlete classification that enables this onesided profit “a neo-plantation mentality.” This resonates with the artist’s statement about his work Cotton Bowl: “the work is about the past and the present coming face to face both in land and in labor … this is perhaps a sense of history repeating itself.”
Hank Willis Thomas’s pairing of two men, one bent among cotton plants and the other at the line of scrimmage, prompts the viewer to consider the racial and economic parallels between enslaved individuals who worked the fields and contemporary college football players who occupy a different kind of field.
Recent developments, however, point to change. In 2021, the Supreme Court ruled that student-athletes could receive aid beyond tuition, and soon after, the NCAA permitted them to earn money via brand endorsements.
HANK WILLIS THOMAS Cotton Bowl
LEWIS W. HINE
Oshkosh, WI 1874–Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 1940
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Boy Going to Work, Merrimac Mills, Huntsville, Alabama, Noon Gelatin silver print, 1910 University of Nebraska–Lincoln Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust H-2143.1975
Oshkosh, WI 1874–Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 1940
LEWIS W. HINE
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Sullivan’s Delivery Boy, South Carolina Gelatin silver print, 1908 University of Nebraska–Lincoln Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust H-2035.1975
University of Nebraska–Lincoln Gift of Del U-3790.1986Zogg
LEWIS W. HINE
Oshkosh, WI 1874–Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 1940
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Young German Steelworker, Pittsburgh Gelatin silver print, 1908
Oshkosh, WI 1874–Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 1940
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LEWIS W. HINE
Oyster Shucker, Mississippi Gelatin silver print, 1911 University of Nebraska–Lincoln Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust H-2034.1975
LEWIS W. HINE
Boy Going to Work, Merrimac Mills, Huntsville, Alabama, Noon
LEWIS W. HINE Oyster Shucker, Mississippi
LEWIS W. HINE Sullivan’s Delivery Boy, South Carolina
Lewis W. Hine and his photographs played a critical role in the passage of the first child labor laws in the United States. His background in sociology and education inspired him to document the conditions under which children as young as six worked. To obscure the dangerous and immoral nature of child labor, photography was forbidden in factories and Hine often disguised himself, risking personal harm, to capture his images.
Young German Steelworker, Pittsburgh
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LEWIS W. HINE
Paris, France 1898–Dorset, VT 1954
Tempera on Masonite mounted on panel, 1933 Nebraska Art Association N-43.1938
REGINALD MARSH
The Park Bench
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The Daily Worker newspaper originated in the 1920s and focused on social and labor issues. This newspaper can also be found in another work in this exhibition, Traffic, 7th Ave. Subway by Hendrik Glintenkamp.
In this Depression-era painting by Reginald Marsh, a man with an upturned collar reads The Daily Worker on a crowded bench. The seated figures display various postures of exhaustion and contemplation. All but the woman on the right are painted in hazy neutral colors that add to the sense of their depletion.
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—Reginald Marsh
Lassitude, born of too little to eat, nothing to do and no place to go afflicts the occupants of The Park Bench.
The Park Bench
REGINALD MARSH
Augusta, NJ 1887–New York, NY 1946
HENDRIK GLINTENKAMP
Traffic, 7th Ave. Subway Wood engraving, 1934
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University of Nebraska–Lincoln Allocation of the US Government, Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration WPA-399.18.1943
HENDRIK GLINTENKAMP Traffic, 7th Ave. Subway
Hendrik Glintenkamp lived and worked for many years in New York, often focusing on the difficult realities of life in the city. He was a student of Robert Henri and received an artistic education described by fellow student, artist Stuart Davis, as “radical and Inrevolutionary.”thisprint,which was submitted to the New Deal–inspired Public Works of Art Project, Glintenkamp snuck in the Daily Worker title and logo during his last edits to the final version. Glintenkamp was also associated with The Masses, a left-wing political magazine. His affiliation with these causes may have been inspired by his observations of the disenfranchised individuals he portrayed, much like Reginald Marsh, who painted similar subjects. Marsh’s painting Park Bench is hung nearby and features The Daily Worker as well.
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Harlem, NY 1946–New York, NY 2015
FERNANDO SALICRUP
The Gloria Rodriguez Calero Collection of Puerto Rican Works on Paper U-5924.2012
University of Nebraska–Lincoln
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Luisa Capetillo 1883–1922 Silkscreen, circa 1980
Artist and community activist Fernando Salicrup depicted Capetillo in her iconic pantsuit, backed by a crowd of supporters. Some of their signs read trabajadoras unios [united workers] and la clase obrera triunfara [the working class will triumph].
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Employed to read newspapers aloud to workers in a tobacco factory, Luisa Capetillo used her access to the laborers to share ideas of worker liberation. A feminist, journalist, and leader of Federación Libre de Trabajadores [Free Federation of Workers], she was active during the time when Puerto Rico was shaping its identity under American neocolonial rule at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Luisa Capetillo 1883–1922
FERNANDO SALICRUP
We must make others understand that we know our rights, and that if they trample on those rights, we have the right to remind them that we are incensed by the injustice of it. —Luisa Capetillo, translated by Alan West Durán, from her book Mi opinión sobre las libertades, derechos y deberes de la mujer [ My opinion on women’s freedoms, rights and duties ]
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AN-MY LÊ
Fragment II: Cattle Drive at Perdiz Creek Ranch (Reservoir), Marfa, Texas, from Silent General Inkjet print, 2019
University of Nebraska–Lincoln Olga N. Sheldon Acquisition Trust U-6990.2022
born Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam 1960
AN-MY LÊ
An-My Lê’s creative process is immersive. Born in Vietnam and evacuated to America during the war in 1975, she considers her point of view as an outsider to be an asset to her photography. For her projects, she works very closely and sometimes participates in the events she photographs, which include military training exercises and war reInenactments.partsofher
expansive series Silent General, An-My Lê explores the complexity of living and working in borderlands during times of rapid social and political change—in her words “how the past manifests in the present of American landscapes and public life.” Here, she photographed four cowboys during a moment of rest on a ranch in Texas.
Fragment II: Cattle Drive at Perdiz Creek Ranch (Reservoir), Marfa, Texas, from Silent General
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Boulangerie Rue de Poitou [Bakery on a Street in Poitou] Gelatin silver print, 1971, printed 1979
ROBERT DOISNEAU
University of Nebraska–Lincoln Gift of Diana M. Stenbery U-3435.11.1982
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Gentilly, France 1912–Montrouge, France 1994
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In the 1930s, Doisneau worked as an industrial photographer in the Renault automobile factories, where he was distressed by the working conditions. Of the people he met there, he said that “trade-union militants” were heroes, and “they do work that won’t bring them glory, yet they are propelled by feelings of justice and aspirations for a better world.” He later worked in fashion for Vogue , but formal employment gave him “a tremendous desire to go back into the streets.”
ROBERT DOISNEAU Boulangerie Rue de Poitou [Bakery on a Street in Poitou]
Robert Doisneau, who spent hours walking the streets of Paris with his camera, captures a man in coveralls stepping out of a bakery with a bottle of wine tucked into his front pocket and baguette in hand. On the building’s exterior, we see a decorative image, featuring an idyllic scene of a farm worker resting his scythe on the ground and wiping his brow. This juxtaposition contrasts myth and reality of labor, yet as we look at the man heading home after work with earned rewards, we remain grounded in real life.
Lavanderia #5 Archival pigment print, 2002–03
University of Nebraska–Lincoln Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust U-7002.2022
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CHRISTINA FERNANDEZ
born Los Angeles, CA 1965
Christina Fernandez’s Lavanderia series features photographs of the exteriors of laundromats in East Los Angeles that reveal a great deal of the buildings’ interiors. In her own words, the series explores “how the urban landscape speaks through the bits and pieces we leave behind in our day-to-day Inlives.”
CHRISTINA FERNANDEZ Lavanderia #5
Lavanderia #5 , Fernandez has captured two figures from the back, sitting side by side as they wait for their laundry. Although their outlines are somewhat blurred, we can see that they are turned toward one another. This image prompts us to think about what we do when not working, what responsibilities remain outside earning money, and how other types of labor can infringe on true leisure.
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Cincinnati, OH 1902–Riverdale, NY 1988 Office Girls Etching, U-181.1949UniversityUniversity1938ofNebraska–LincolnCollection
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ISABEL BISHOP
Lunch Hour Ink and wash on paper, 1940
University of Nebraska–Lincoln
ISABEL BISHOP
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Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust H-225.1942
Cincinnati, OH 1902–Riverdale, NY 1988
Office
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Girls
BISHOP Lunch Hour
Isabel Bishop drew inspiration from the working women she saw in Union Square, New York City. She shows them professionally and fashionably dressed, enjoying their lunch or quietly socializing. Whether they are eating, reapplying lipstick, or casually rocking on the heels of their shoes, Bishop has carefully observed the details of these figures and replicated them in her work without exaggeration or judgment.
ISABEL
ISABEL BISHOP
vAt this time in history, more women were entering the white-collar workforce while managing the traditional expectation of marriage and child-rearing. In this sketch and this etching, Bishop presents a respite from both the daily tasks of office work and broader societal pressures.
