The Hitchhiker

Maker Robert Gwathmey (1903 - 1988)

Collections

American Print Selections

ClassificationsPRINTS

Dateca. 1937

Mediumcolor screenprint

Dimensions16 7/8 x 13 1/8 in. (42.9 x 33.3 cm.) sheet: 21 5/8 x 17 in. (54.9 x 43.2 cm.)

SignedSigned in top left of image on recto in black ink: Gwathmey

InscribedSigned in top left of image on recto in black ink: Gwathmey Inscribed in lower center of recto in graphite: Hitchhiker

Credit LineThe Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Gift of Hannah S. Kully

Label TextRobert Gwathmey created an ironic juxtaposition of downtrodden hitchhikers with bright billboards promising an American life that was elusive during the Depression. In his history of the 1930s, Harper's editor Frederick Lewis Allen noted "the vastly increased thumbers on the highway" that he characterized as "a huge army of drifters ever on the move, searching half-aimlessly for a place where they might find a job." The men in Gwathmey's print head in opposite directions, suggesting the futility of their search.

Status

Not on view

Object number2011.3.5