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Flood

Date
1937
Classification
Prints
Current Location
Not on view
Dimensions
image: 13 1/4 × 19 1/8 in. (33.6 × 48.6 cm)
sheet: 15 13/16 × 22 3/4 in. (40.1 × 57.8 cm)
Credit Line
Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration
Rights
Public Domain
Object Number
188:1943
NOTES
Distorted, desperate figures reach for each other in a cityscape torn apart by rushing waters. Boris Gorelick may have created this print in response to the devastating flood of January 1937, when the Ohio River inundated communities from Pittsburgh to Cairo, Illinois. A Russian Jewish immigrant, Gorelick frequently employed Surrealist techniques of montage and fragmentation in his prints to raise consciousness about social, economic, or ecological crises. In addition to being one of the original members of the Federal Art Project’s New York lithography workshop, Gorelick also painted murals and established the Phoenix Art Center in Arizona.

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