The Mission

Maker Raphael Soyer (American, 1899 - 1987)

Collections

American Print Selections

ClassificationsPRINTS

Date1933

Mediumlithograph

Dimensions12 1/8 x 17 3/4 in. (30.8 x 45.1 cm.) sheet: 16 x 23 in. (40.6 x 58.4 cm.)

SignedSigned in lower right of recto in graphite: Raphael Soyer

InscribedSigned in lower right of recto in graphite: Raphael Soyer Signed in lower left of recto in graphite: The Mission

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

Label TextSoyer's lithograph is a touching character study of down-and-out men dining on a meager repast of free sandwiches and coffee during the early years of the Depression. Soyer's own experience as a poor immigrant growing up in a New York tenement allowed him to sympathize with his subjects. Carl Zigrosser, a long-time curator of prints and drawings at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, characterized Soyer in 1942 as "a voice of the nameless multitude, the downtrodden and underprivileged, the immigrant aspiring to freedom and a full life."

Status

Not on view

Object number2011.3.23