Physical Qualities
Color screenprint, Sheet: 671 x 487 mm. (26 7/16 x 19 3/16 in.)
Credit Line
The United States General Services Administration, formerly Federal Works Agency, Works Progress Administration, on extended loan to the Baltimore Museum of Art.
Object Number
L.1943.9.377
In this intimate portrait, ALB veteran Oscar Hunter (1908–1983) reclines, lost in thought. Wounded in action during the Spanish Civil War, Hunter was appointed Political Commissar of a hospital in Murcia, Spain, coordinating the repatriation of wounded American soldiers and managing political education for recovering troops. This experience inspired his short story, “700 Calendar Days,” in which Black soldiers relate the war in Spain to both Fascist Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 and their
own lives under Jim Crow segregation in the United States.
An experienced Communist organizer educated at the Hampton Institute in Virginia and Northwestern University in Illinois, Hunter wove antifascist, antiracist, and anticapitalist
theory into accessible short fiction. Similarly, this print by Bernece Berkman, Hunter’s wife, made radical art—the image of a Black, Communist veteran of the antifascist
struggle—widely available.
Virginia Anderson and Robin Owen Joyce, The Baltimore Museum of Art, "Art/Work: Women Printmakers of the WPA," November 5, 2023 - June 30, 2024.
Inscribed: RECTO: LL margin (pencil): 'Lemme think'; LC margin (pencil): '24/25'; LR margin (pencil): 'B. Berkman-'40. #90 N.A.A'; BL Corner (pencil): '24'; BR Corner (pencil): 5279'. VERSO: UL (pencil): '#1696 - gr. I'; LC: BMA stamp, and (pencil): 'Illinois / Bernice Berman / Silk Screen'; LR (black grease pencil): '5279'.
