Zach Proctor's Paintings

Behind the Scene: Zach Proctor's Paintings of the Railmen

BY JAMES R. SWENSEN

Ever since travel by rail began more than two centuries ago, artists have been lured to its picturesque qualities. When the English painter J. M. W. Turner depicted the railways in 1844, for example, he captured a newfound beauty that symbolized a burgeoning modern age (fig. 1). The lure of the rails was particularly potent in the latter decades of the nineteenth century and into the next century when the pictorial elements of steel, steam, and speed became irresistible, attracting a diverse cadre of artists like Charles Sheeler, Edward Hopper, Alfred Stieglitz, and many more.

Although there are numerous exceptions, traditionally pictures of the railroad employ similar, distinctive tropes. Whether through paintings, photographs, or other means, many images seem to feature darkened trains charging through a landscape or people waiting patiently on the quay of a station.1 Rails create natural orthogonals, dynamic lines leading to a vanishing point that structure a picture’s composition. Add a bellowing column of steam rising into the air from a mass of patterned steel, and the image of a mechanized, rhythmic form becomes even more dramatic. In most railroad pictures, human beings are secondary in importance. In his imagery of American industry, for example, Sheeler emphasized machinery and technology and rarely included human figures.

In contrast to others, Utah artist Zachary Proctor (born 1976) takes a different approach to the rails. Rather than focus on the more obvious and typical depictions of the railroad, he paints individuals who are rarely the focus of a painting or a photograph. This introduction to Proctor’s work highlights his railway paintings, with particular emphasis on his depictions of the men who tirelessly worked behind the scenes to keep the iron horses moving (fig. 2). Proctor is interested in an ever widening range of subject matter, from masked sea divers to race cars, but his series on the railroad has become a particularly important part of his oeuvre. Featured originally at the Terzian Gallery in Park City, Utah, in 2017, two years later Proctor’s railroad paintings were included in several statewide exhibitions commemorating the sesquicentennial anniversary of the Transcontinental Railroad’s completion at Promontory in 1869.

Figure 1. J. M. W. Turner, Rain, Steam, and Speed—The Great Western Railway, 1844. oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, London.

Historically the worker is rarely depicted in railway imagery. Artistic representations of the industry have nearly always followed a top-down approach. Images of locomotives, speed, and power have always been more enticing—thought to be more worthy of study—than mechanics, engineers, and those who work along the line. As the American studies scholar Leo Marx argued, “Technological power overwhelms the solitary man; the landscape convention calls for his presence to provide scale, but here the traditional figure acquires new meaning: in this mechanized environment he seems forlorn and powerless.”2 As mere scale figures that show the enormity of the railroad’s enterprise, the worker was frequently absorbed into the “landscape of production,” becoming nothing more than a cog in the larger machine.3 Notably, this is not true of Proctor’s work. Instead of depicting figures for scale or a mechanized environment glorifying industrial might, he creates paintings that bestow agency on working men and that make their tasks seem irreplaceable, monumental. In his work they are not just brute matter but capable men doing their job and making everything work.

Viewers of railroad images, like railroad passengers, rarely think of the individuals who made it possible. As the historian David Nye has written, few individuals “who rode the railroad concerned themselves with the human cost of building it, or inquired deeply into the social effects of railroads beyond their immediate promise of prosperity and speed.” Travelers, rather, much like the audience of a painting or photograph, “learned to focus on the immediate experience of seeing the mechanical perfection and the power of the locomotives. They enjoyed riding in new forms of transportation and seeing new landscapes, concentrating on novel physical sensations and new vistas.”4 In his paintings Proctor turns this tradition on its head, requiring viewers to see what lies at the root of the power and “mechanical perfection” of the rail industry.

Figure 2. Zachary Proctor, To Be Of Use, oil on canvas, 2016.

Always one interested in technical precision and perfection, Proctor honed his drawing skills, which began early in his life, and later supplemented his abilities with painting. He completed a degree from the University of Utah and an MFA in Art from Utah State University in 2012. Like many visual artists, Proctor is a calculated practitioner. Working primarily in oil on canvas, he constantly builds up and reworks his paintings, worrying about the final result. Adroit at capturing the human form in an economy of brushstroke and line, Proctor gravitated toward portraiture and especially to images from the past. He is an incessant scavenger of images, gleaning subjects from old photographs that he finds in a host of sources, including weathered Life magazines or the orderly archives of the Library of Congress. These sources helped Proctor with a central theme of his work, which is the exploration of the relationship between man and machine—as he put it, “creating compositions that show the task these men tackle.”5

There is an element of the photographic in Proctor’s work. This is intentional; he insists that his intent as a painter is to “arrest motion on canvas by artificial means, to capture life and hold it fixed.”6 It is important to note, however, that Proctor’s paintings are not slavish copies of the photographs he uses as source material and inspiration. For those interested in exactness and representational art, he warns, they will be disappointed. After discovering an image, he works it over, modifying and manipulating the photographs. He leaves out details and enhances others in order to bring out what he views as the focus of a piece. It is his aim to “create a nostalgic world once imagined and now conceivably constructed with paint.”7 Fittingly, Proctor’s paintings begin from historic photographs since Proctor has a strong connection with photographers like Lewis Hine and Jack Delano.

A pioneer of documentary photography, Hine excelled at recording the laborer. This was particularly true of his series “Men at Work,” which he completed and published later in his life. For Hine workers were not just cogs of the machine age but central to American industry. Writing in 1932, he professed, “cities do not build themselves, machines cannot make machines, unless back of them all are the brains and toil of men.”8 Moreover, he elevated the American worker; “some of them are heroes,” he wrote, “all of them persons it is a privilege to know.”9 Along with the builders of the modern skyscraper (the subject for which he is most remembered) and the coal miner, Hine singled out the railway worker, calling him the “modern Thor.” His photographs of these men set them apart from their pivotal industry and highlight their strength and skill.

Figure 3. Jack Delano, Chicago, Illinois. A worker in the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad locomotive repair shops, December 1942. Library of Congress, LC-USW3012658-E.

Proctor’s work may carry the spirit of Hine, but he has been particularly influenced by the work of photographer Jack Delano, who clearly follows in the same documentary tradition.10 As a photographer for two New Deal agencies— the Farm Security Administration and, later, the Office of War Information—Delano began documenting the rails in 1940 under the direction of Roy Stryker. For more than three years during a turbulent period in history, Delano made hundreds of photographs along America’s railroads and paid careful attention to the workers who kept the rails going. The product of a struggling Jewish immigrant family, Delano’s primary interest was, as his son Pablo Delano proposed, “the people that made the whole system work: the railroad workers.”11 A poignant example of his concern for the people behind the scenes is his 1942 photograph of the repair shop of the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad (fig. 3). Like so many of his images, Delano brings his subject to the fore, recording a human being with depth and individuality. He stated, “I think it is my lifelong concern for the common people and appreciation of their value that have been the driving force behind everything I have done.”12

Proctor’s work deserves to be seen in the context of—and in concert with—these photographers. He admits that he is enamored and influenced, directly and indirectly, by previous photographers and their work. Together they share a united interest in the unnamed worker of the rails—rarely visible but just as vital to the system’s success. Like the title of one of his paintings, his work moves in “common rhythm” with their photographs and in their united interest in the common man. By following these photographers into the past, Proctor focuses on an age in which the white, male worker dominated American industry. This world was never homogeneous and would see greater diversity over the coming decades as more and more minorities and women gained a greater foothold in the workforce. Proctor’s rail series not only benefited from his study of historical materials but was also forged through personal connections to place. A native of Salt Lake City, Utah, Proctor’s first sustained exposure to the railroad came shortly after he finished graduate school and moved to the small town of Helper. Located in eastern Utah, Helper is a railroad town that once supported nearly thirty coalmining settlements. More racially and ethnically diverse than the rest of the state, it was once filled with American and first and second generation Italian, Greek, Austrian, Japanese, and Chinese miners.13 The Denver & Rio Grande Western line came through in the 1880s. The town received its name in 1892 due to the “helper” engines needed to push trains up the heavy grade to Soldier Summit, one of the highest passes on the Transcontinental Railroad.

With the decline of Utah’s coal industry in the twentieth century, Helper’s population began to dwindle. Residents and businesses slowly pulled up stakes, leaving empty storefronts and homes—and cheap rent—in the picturesque town. This convergence created the perfect environment for artists who began moving to the town and conducting workshops.14 Hoping to revitalize the economy, local boosters began to tout it as an art destination. Even with its new look, however, the presence of the railroad is still visible and omnipresent. Most of Helper is within sight of the tracks, which gracefully curve through the heart of the town.

One of those attracted to Helper was Proctor, who was a resident artist there from 2003 to 2004. During his residency, he became interested in the railroad, not as a subject unto itself, but as a conduit to the worker. “The railroad seemed to present a large demographic of people working together to accomplish something,” he stated. “Helper showed me a ‘behind the scenes’ view into these men.” It also pushed him further. “The railroad town forced me to investigate my own ancestry. I come from people who are cut from the same cloth.” His painting Helper (fig. 4), a work based on Delano’s photograph of the Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, pays tribute to these men and to a place where people worked together toward a common goal.15 It also references the place where he began to see the latent potential of this subject matter.

Figure 4. Zachary Proctor, Helper, oil on canvas, c. 2016

Relating the worker to himself and his family is essential in understanding Proctor’s series. His railmen are always proxies. Through these images Proctor sees his grandfather, Harold Proctor, a machinist who learned his trade in the Army and through hard work and skill provided his family a comfortable life. Like Hine, who directly linked his photographs of workers to his own labor, Proctor relates his figures to himself as well. By working with their hands and problem solving, these workers are also like artists. “The machinist’s grind is similar to that of an artist,” Proctor argues. “Grinding it out to make things go.” The daily grind of work is important for both professions. Proctor continues, “These paintings make me want to work harder. They say that getting up every day to the grind will provide a better life for my kids.” Yet he knows that his choice of subject matter affects his paintings’ salability and, in turn, his ability to support a growing family. “They seem to sell well if the train is more of the focus than the men,” he acknowledges. In this Proctor finds himself in a difficult balance that many artists face; do they make what they know will be commercially successful or do they create to satisfy their own artistic impulses and sensibilities?

Trains in landscapes may sell better, but that is not what interests Proctor. Instead of bestowing monumentality on a machine, he bestows it on his figures, making them more than mere representations of labor. Like Hine and Delano, he often brings his subjects to the foreground to confront and fill the viewer’s gaze. As in the painting Submerged in His Task, one sees a man dutifully engaged in his work (fig. 5). In this process even a mundane task becomes grand. In depicting his workers, Proctor often maintains a limited palette, painting in greyscale, making them appear similar to a historical photograph. He likes to work with “compressed color schemes” so as to create an air of timelessness. Like a photograph, he loves depicting the “texture of grit” which makes the scene believable and tactile for the viewer.

Unlike the photographers, however, Proctor is able to leave out details that might obstruct or conflict with his overall purpose. This is visible in his painting Anticipating Darkness, which was taken from a photograph that Delano made near Needles, California in 1943 (fig. 6).16 Delano took his photograph in a time of war. Decades later Proctor reexamined the same scene in a period of stability, which allowed him to see it with different eyes. In his painting, Proctor omitted certain details found in the photograph, like power lines, that he believed obstructed the image. He removed the engine’s number (#3891) to make it less specific and more universal. This is also accomplished through the obscured face of the worker making him an everyman. Bringing these images out of the archive is also an important part of the process and the conceptual underpinning of his work. Just as Delano deemed this moment and this individual worthy of recording, Proctor helps bestow additional importance on this image through his selection and artistic efforts. No longer a nearly forgotten photograph in the Library of Congress and the public domain, Proctor makes it his own. He magnifies the original, creating a work of size and skill that will be available to a new audience.

Figure 5. Zachary Proctor, Submerged in the Task, oil on canvas, c. 2016

Figure 6. Zachary Proctor, Anticipating Darkness, oil on canvas, c. 2017

Proctor is also able to elevate his subjects through his use and selection of titles. This is clear of the previous work in which working on a headlamp becomes “anticipating darkness,” with all of its possible metaphors. Proctor admits that he is always searching for titles that can add greater meaning to his paintings and gravitas to his subjects. Like his found photographs, his inspiration for his titles comes from disparate historical sources. Took Thence a Stone is a good example (fig. 7). For the image of a man stretching to complete his task against metal and steam, Proctor chose a line from the Bible (1 Samuel 17:49). The line references David, the future king of Israel, who just selected the stones by which he would defeat Goliath. Paralleling this anonymous railworker with the ultimate underdog clearly adds weight to his task. But it also reimagines the dichotomy of man and might, the small and the mighty. Proctor’s worker is not just a man performing a simple job, but a conduit through which mighty works will be performed and behemoth industries promoted and maintained.

Figure 7. Zachary Proctor, Took Thence a Stone, oil on canvas, c. 2017

Figure 8. Zachary Proctor, The Honesty of His Efforts, oil on canvas, c. 2018. Original in color.

Figure 9. Zachary Proctor, To Move Things Along, oil on canvas, c. 2018. Original in color.

With time, subtle but important changes have entered Proctor’s rail series. Selective color has entered his more recent series that more boldly highlights individual workers and their traits. This is particularly evident in The Honesty of His Efforts in which color is only employed in the central figure (fig. 8). The brilliant blue of the work suit, the buff gloves, brown shoes, and clean rosy face help the central figure emerge from the monochromatic background. Despite the sweeping gesture of this figure, there is almost a reverence in its stillness. As he performs the simple task of finishing his labors, we are reminded of the value of an honest-day’s work and the blue-collar laborers who were once the backbone of American industry.

In many ways, Proctor’s entire series is driven by nostalgia and a sense of loss—not of the emblematic steam engine but of a generation of men and their way of life. This may be seen in another of Proctor’s newer “color” images: To Move Things Along (fig. 9). Once again, he has presented the viewer with an anonymous figure quietly lost in his task. There can be poetry in what otherwise might be a blunt depiction of menial work. As the subject prepares the train’s imminent departure, we are reminded through image and text of the transience of time. In many ways two final Proctor paintings of railmen provide a nice summary and conclusion to this body of work (fig. 10). The earlier work, For Nothing is Fixed, shows three figures performing required maintenance and repairs. It emphasizes the ongoing and ever changing challenge of keeping everything moving. Eventually nearly all parts will need to be replaced. In time this engine, too, will be replaced by better and faster technologies. This reading is certainly true, but the title—a reference to James Baldwin’s essay “Nothing Personal”—adds an additional layer of meaning. Proctor stumbled onto Baldwin, the African American writer and critic, and began to learn everything about him. The lines Proctor used for his painting’s title come from the final paragraphs of Balwin’s essay.”17 “For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed,” Baldwin wrote, “the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing. . . . Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have.” Weighted by this responsibility, Proctor makes the viewer a witness. By engaging with this material, he believes that it helps us see the importance of the mechanic, the worker, the railmen, and their tasks. In His Final Inspection (fig. 11) Proctor returns to a central figure of For Nothing is Fixed. The bold colors draw attention to the stout and slightly disheveled man who now dominates the painting. While not glamorous or beautiful, the emphasis is on individual workers and their loss. This is, after all, his final inspection. This focus is central to Proctor’s intent as he wants us to remember them, their labors, and their sacrifices.

Figure 10. Zachary Proctor, For Nothing is Fixed, oil on canvas, c. 2016

This message is timely. With the loss of heavy industries across the United States, jobs like those featured in the paintings are disappearing or already long gone. “These men are becoming extinct,” Proctor insists. “We are focused on the financial markets, and very little on manufacturing.” As a craftsman and artist, he is troubled that we are losing key abilities and skills. Through his work, and his rail paintings in particular, Proctor reminds us of these railmen and of the importance of those who work with their hands, whether they work with steel, steam, or a brush.

Notes

1. For good examples of these tropes, see J. Craig Thorpe, “Painting the Possible: Railroad Art with a Visionary Message,” Railroad Heritage 3 (Summer 2017): 10–33.

2. Leo Marx, The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America (1964; New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 356.

3. David E. Nye, American Technological Sublime (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1994), 133.

4. Nye, 72.

5. Zachary Proctor, interview with the author, Salt Lake City, Utah, April 2017. All quotes from the artist below originate from this interview and will not be individually cited.

6. Zach Proctor, “Statement,” in Transcontinental: People, Place, Impact (Salt Lake City: Utah Division of Arts & Museums, 2019), 32.

7. Proctor statement.

8. Lewis Hine, Men at Work: Photographic Studies of Modern Men and Machines (1932; New York: Dover, 1977), n.p.

9. Hine, n.p.

10. For more see Tony Reevy, The Railroad Photography of Jack Delano (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2015), 13.

11. Pablo Delano, “Reflections on My Father’s Railroad Photographs,” in Railroaders: Jack Delano’s Homefront Photography, ed. John Gruber (Madison, WI: Center for Railroad Photography and Art, 2014), 15.

12. Reevy, Jack Delano, 3.

13. Writers’ Program (WPA), Utah: A Guide to the State (New York: Hastings House, 1941), 404.

14. Other artists attracted to Helper for residence or workshops include Dave Dornan, Paul Davis, John Erickson, Doug Braithwaite, Charley Snow, Brian Blackham, Lindsay Frei, and Ben Steele.

15. See Delano, Topeka, Kansas. Wheeling an engine of the 3200 freight class in the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad locomotive shops, March 1943, Library of Congress, LC-USW3-019286-D.

16. Jack Delano, Needles (vicinity), California. Desert country along the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad between Needles and Barstow, California, March 1943, LC-USW3-021412-E.

17. Baldwin’s text originated from a collaboration with his long-time friend, the photographer Richard Avedon. See James Baldwin and Richard Avedon, Nothing Personal (Lucerne: C.H. Bucher, 1964).