William Gropper

The painter and political cartoonist William Gropper was born in New York City, the son of East European immigrants who worked in the garment industry. A political radical who was sympathetic to communism (but was never a party member), Gropper contributed political cartoons in the interwar years to both radical and liberal newspapers and magazines. He painted in a representational style that employed cubism’s pronounced angularity. In the 1930s, he received government and business commissions for murals. In the wake of the Holocaust, he turned frequently to explicitly Jewish themes.