Dorothy Jeakins and WPA/Federal Art Project, Los Angeles
Teru Osato
1935
Scroll
Physical Qualities
Crayon lithograph, Sheet: 424 × 339 mm. (16 11/16 × 13 3/8 in.)
Image: 241 × 201 mm. (9 1/2 × 7 15/16 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.1943.9.399
WPA workshops brought together artists at varying stages of their careers, allowing young artists to make connections with established peers. Concentric rings of undulating lines form a tunnel in Olinka Hrdy’s Turner Falls II. Perhaps Dorothy Jeakins, whose desk adjoined Hrdy’s in the WPA Los Angeles Graphic Arts Workshop, chose to echo Hrdy’s sinuous composition with the pronounced profile and sweeping tresses of her portrait of Teru Osato (c. 1920–1946), a Japanese American art student. Both Hrdy and Jeakins worked in the studio at the same time as Helen Lundeberg, known for teaching the post-surrealist style. Her print Planets features mysterious juxtapositions of starkly rendered geometric forms.
Extended Loans IN
Art/Work: Women Printmakers of the WPA
Inscribed: RECTO: LL margin (pencil): 'Teru Osato'; LR margin (pencil): 'Dorothy Jeakins 8[circled] 1936'. VERSO: TC (pencil): '#1696 - gr. I'; TR (stamped in black ink, filled in with blue ink): 'FEDERAL ART PROJECT NO. 3540 / TITLE 'Taro Osato' / ARTIST Dorothy Jeakins / RECEIVED 5-7-37 / 8x10'; R Ctr: BMA stamp; R Edge (stamped in blue ink): 'OCT 6 1937'.
