Rock Drillers
Medium
Screenprint
Dimensions
Sheet: 17 1/2 × 15 1/4 in. (44.5 × 38.7 cm) Image: 13 1/2 × 13 1/4 in. (34.3 × 33.7 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of the Work Projects Administration
Accession Number
43.33.946
Rights
Public Domain
Tags
Art Historical Context
Harry Gottlieb's *Rock Drillers* (1939) is a dynamic screenprint celebrating the grit and labor of American workers during the Great Depression. Produced the Work Projects Administration (WPA), this bold image captures men operating heavy pneumatic drills, their muscular forms straining against unyielding rock. The composition's stark contrasts and simplified forms evoke the industrial rhythm of construction projects that symbolized national recovery efforts, aligning with the era's Social Realism movement, which highlighted everyday heroes of the workforce. As part of the WPA's Graphic Arts Division, Gottlieb's print exemplifies the program's mission to employ artists and distribute affordable art to the public. Screenprinting, or silkscreen, was a revolutionary technique here—allowing vibrant, mass-reproducible images on a budget. Measuring 17½ × 15¼ inches, this edition was gifted to institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, preserving WPA's legacy of over 35,000 prints that boosted morale and documented New Deal infrastructure like dams and roads. Today, *Rock Drillers* reminds us of art's power to dignify labor, reflecting 1930s optimism amid hardship. Spot the rhythmic repetition of drills and figures, a nod to machinery's dehumanizing yet empowering force.
About the Artist
Harry Gottlieb|WPA (American| ) · 1894 | –1992 |
American, Bucharest, Rumania 1895–1993 New York|