Author's Note: This article developed from a paper presented at the Fifth Annual Whitney Museum of American Art Symposium, spring 1982. I would like to thank the following people for their assistance in the research and preparation of this article: the late James Guy, his wife Ada Guy, Martin and Harriet Diamond, Professor Marlene Park, and Barbara Gallati.

1. For example, Hills, Particia, Social Concern and Urban Realism: American Painting of the 1930s (Boston: Boston University Art Gallery, 1983)Google Scholar, catalog for traveling exhibition, organized by the Bread and Roses Cultural Project of the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees, New York, 1983–1984. Hills gives a good survey of the political and related artistic developments of the period.

2. Of recent literature, only the following two items include a discussion of Guy: Wechsler, Jeffrey and Spector, Jack J., Surrealism and American Art, 1931–1947 (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Art Gallery, 1971)Google Scholar (exhibition catalog); and Fort, Ilene Susan, “American Social Surrealism,” Archives of American Art Journal 22, No. 3 (1982): 8–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. Guy was born in Middletown, Connecticut in 1910 and first studied art at the Hartford Art School under Albertus E. Jones (1882–1957). In the late 1920s he began exhibiting landscapes and still lifes, inspired by Charles Burchfield and George Grosz, in the annual Wadsworth Atheneum shows. In 1932, Guy was given his first one-man exhibition at the Annex of the Wadsworth Atheneum: none of his works from these early years have been located.

Biographical information is from the following sources: Salpeter, Harry, “Ghoul of the Ghostly West,” Esquire 16 (08 1941): 153 ff.Google Scholar; autobiographical note, manuscript in possession of Martin Diamond Gallery; and interview with Guy by the author, September 25, 1980.

4. For a fuller discussion of the first phase of surrealism in America, see Wechsler and Spector, Surrealism and American Art.

5. The landmark exhibition was shown later in New York at the Julien Levy Gallery. Levy had conceived of the show, but had permitted it to open at the Wadsworth Atheneum, a major public museum, because of the importance of the exhibition.

6. During the 1930s, Guy spent short periods of time in Connecticut, but always returned to New York. During the winter of 1933–1934, he was listed as a PWAP artist residing in Hartford (information courtesy National Archives). Guy did not move permanently back to Connecticut until the end of the decade and then did so solely for family reasons.

7. For the discussion of surrealism and politics, the author is indebted to Gershman, Herbert S., The Surrealist Revolution in France (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1969), pp. 80–110.Google Scholar

8. Masson, André, “Letter to André Breton,” La Révolution surréaliste 5 (10 1925): 30Google Scholar, quoted in Breton, André, André Breton: What is Surrealism? Selected Writings, ed. Rosemont, Franklin (New York: Monad Press, 1978), p. 57.Google Scholar

9. Breton, André and Rivera, Diego, “Manifesto: Towards a Free Revolutionary Art,” Partisan Review 6 (Fall 1938): 49–53.Google Scholar For tactical reasons, Rivera signed the manifesto instead of Trotsky, the actual author.

10. Guy not only designed the sets for the production but acted in a minor role. (“The Barn Theatre Presents ‘Strike’, dramatized by Blake, William Dorsey from Vorse, Mary Heaton's novel, ‘Strike’,” [1931]Google Scholar, copy of leaflet in possession of William Dorsey Blake, New York). According to Guy's autobiographical note, the artist was also one-third owner and producer of the production. Guy went to New York specifically for the purpose of performing the play there. While the play closed after only a brief run, he remained in New York for most of the decade of the 1930s.

11. Refrieger designed the poster for the play Strike, and it may have been at that time that Guy met him. See “Revolutionary Art School,” Art Front 1 (02 1935): 2.Google Scholar

12. Monroe, Gerald M., “Artists as Militant Trade Union Workers During the Great Depression,” Archives of American Art Journal 14, No. 1 (1974): 7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar In 1934, the Unemployed Artists Group became the better-known Artists Union.

13. The best source on Quirt is Walter Quirt: A Retrospective (Minneapolis: University Gallery, University of Minnesota, 1980)Google Scholar, which includes an essay by Mary Towley Swanson and reminiscences by Raphael Soyer, James Guy, Romare Bearden, and others. (Exhibition catalog)

14. For a fuller discussion of surrealism and its use in socially concerned art, see the author's article in Archives of American Art Journal 22, No. 3 (1982): 8–20.Google Scholar

15. Clement, Grace, “New Content-New Form,” Art Front 2 (03 1936): 9Google Scholar; and Duroc, Margaret, “Critique from the Left,” Art Front 2 (01 1936): 7.Google Scholar

16. For a typical review, see J. W. L., [review of exhibition at Ferargil Gallery], Art News 39 (02 1, 1941): 14.Google Scholar

17. In 1941, Guy supposedly told a critic that he did create in a psychic automatic state: “When I'm half-way through, I discover that it has social meaning. And I'm surprised.” (Art Digest 15 [02 1, 1941]: 13).Google Scholar However, in 1980, when interviewed by the author, Guy admitted that surrealism was for him basically a “technical device.”

18. Reminiscence by Guy, James (1977)Google Scholar in Walter Quirt: A Retrospective (1980).Google Scholar

19. Autobiographical note, n. p. Unfortunately Guy never mentioned the exact time of his Mexican training.

20. According to his own account he went once with Quirt and at least once by himself (Guy interview).

21. Guy painted at least two other murals, one in Hartford High School and the other for an elementary school in Meriden, Connecticut. Both of these were nonpolitical and were done under the auspices of the Works Progress Administration.

22. Porter, Fairfield, “Murals for Workers,” Arise 1, No. 4 (1935)Google Scholar, reprinted in Fairfield Porter: Art in its Own Terms, ed. Downes, Rackstraw (New York: Taplinger, 1979), pp. 241–43.Google Scholar

23. The painting was done under the auspices of the Easel Project of the Federal Art Project, Works Progress Administriation and exhibited with other WPA-sponsored art at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in the exhibition, New Horizons in American Art, 1936, no. 81.Google Scholar

24. Guy interview.

25. The other film was about New York taxicab drivers.

26. The strike received national coverage. For example, “Elevator Strikers Lose,” New Republic 86 (03 25, 1936): 181–82.Google Scholar

27. The primary source used for Hearst's biography was Swanberg, W. A., Citizen Hearst: A Biography of William Randolph Hearst (New York: Scribner's, 1961).Google Scholar Hearst's reputation has changed with the times. The author's intention was not to take a stand for or against Hearst, but to convey the opinion of Hearst that prevailed among the general public in the 1930s. This was ascertained by examining the literature published by political groups of the time and the historical studies on Hearst published after his death.

28. Particularly informative concerning Hearst's political changes is Carlisle, Rodney P., Hearst and the New Deal: The Progressive as Reactionary (New York: Garland, 1979).Google Scholar

29. The label, “Labor's No. 1 Enemy” was often used in political leaflets, for example, Casey, James, Hearst: Labor's Enemy No. 1 (New York, 1935) (leaflet in New York Public Library).Google Scholar

30. Casey, , Hearst: Labor's Enemy No. 1.Google Scholar

31. Ibid.

32. By the late 1920s, Hearst's chain of newspapers had the largest circulation of all the daily chains in the country. In the period 1931 to 1935, the peak of his newspaper empire, Hearst owned newspapers in eighteen cities. In the 1920s, he had cooperated with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in forming a newsreel company: his Hearst-Metrotone News continued to produce newsreels till 1936 (Carlisle, , Hearst and the New Deal, pp. 8–21).Google Scholar

33. The latter strike lasted three months and eventually won important concessions for the union. It was covered extensively in the New York Times. During the summer of 1936, a national boycott of Hearst-owned papers was urged. This boycott was what Guy was referring to in his note on the verso of Elevator Strike.

34. The motif of a large object obstructing the movement of a figure was used earlier by Ernst, Max in his Woman, Old Man and Flower, 1923–1924Google Scholar, which was purchased by the Museum of Modern Art in 1937.

35. In a radio address, “Government by the Proletariat,” broadcast on NBC and later printed as an editorial for January 6, 1935, in the New York American and other Hearst-owned papers, Hearst attacked Communism and voiced his opinion against giving aid to the starving Russians, even though some American religious organizations were for helping the Russians.

36. Guy referred to the painting as Cinderella when it was rediscovered in 1982.

37. She is identified as a Macy's employee by the badge on her right breast, which reads “ACY”; the badge is cut off by the edge of the painting. All attempts to determine whether a specific Macy's strike or employment problem inspired this painting have proved unsuccessful.

38. For a reproduction of this painting, see American Artists Congress, Third Annual Membership Exhibition (New York: 1939)Google Scholar, No. 99. (Exhibition catalog.)

39. Guy interview.

40. Such sentiment was expressed by a critic in the review of the 1942 Annual, Whitney. (“The Art Galleries: The Whitney and the War,” New YorkerGoogle Scholar, clipping in Guglielmi Scrapbook, Archives of American Art.)

41. Even Isaac Soyer was moved to create an antifascist painting, Where's Next, 1938Google Scholar, illustrated and discussed along with other antifascist paintings in Hills, , Social Concern and Urban Realism.Google Scholar

42. The multiple images of Dali, 's The Endless EnigmaGoogle Scholar were diagramed in an exhibition catalog of the artist's work shown at the Levy, Julien Gallery in 1939.Google Scholar

43. Collective Suicide was shown in 1936 at the Museum of Modern Art's Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism exhibition. Echo was #152 in the Museum of Modern Art's 1939 exhibition “Art in Our Time.”

44. Brian, Doris, “The Passing Shows,” Art News 41 (03 1–14, 1942): 29.Google Scholar

45. Who Will Stand the Light of Tomorrow is illustrated in Archives of American Art Journal 22, No. 3 (1982): 18Google Scholar; it should have been listed as a gouache rather than an oil.

46. A reproduction of the painting was included in a review of Guy's art at the Ferargil Galleries in New York. See Art Digest 15 (02 1, 1941): 13Google Scholar for illustration and review.

47. Quoted in James Guy (New York: Ferargil Galleries, 1944), n.p. (Exhibition catalog.)Google Scholar