Via Northwestern

Artist: Ida Abelman, American, 1908–2002
Associated: Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration, Washington, D.C., active 1935–1943
Date: 1939
Material: Crayon and tusche lithograph, with scraped highlights
made in: New York, New York, United States, North and Central America
Classification: Prints
Collection: Prints, Drawings, and Photographs
Current Location: Not on view
Dimensions: image: 10 1/2 × 14 1/2 in. (26.7 × 36.8 cm)
sheet: 12 5/8 × 16 in. (32.1 × 40.6 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration
Rights: Public Domain
Object Number: 149:1943

NOTES

Fragments of a midwestern landscape fly by, as if viewed from a train window. Ida Abelman presented her recollections of traveling via the North Western Railroad from her home in New York City to Sioux City, Iowa. The Federal Art Project sent her there to teach at its newly opened community art center, where she gave talks and demonstrations on lithography. Most of her work took the form of political lithographs depicting the experiences of the urban poor, among whom she counted herself as the child of Russian Jewish immigrants.

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