Magazine Illustrations

Gropper contributed artwork to such mainstream magazines as Fortune, Life, the Nation, the New Pearson's, and Vanity Fair, as well as left-wing periodicals like Fight, Ken, Liberator, New Masses, Pagan, Revolutionary Age, and Shadowland.

Gropper made this comment on the apparent ease with which he contributed to both popular and radical publications:

I have been, at times, very interested in extremes. The extreme left as well as the extreme right. I went into it one hundred percent. I never joined any organization or party, but I drew for them openly. I didn't change my name, as a lot of other people did. So I was more or less classed as an extremist, but I have also drawn for very erudite publications and very snazzy publications like Vanity Fair (William Gropper: Retrospective by August L. Freundlich [Los Angeles: Ward Ritchie Press, in conjunction with the Joe and Emily Lowe Art Gallery of the University of Miami, 1968], 28).

17. Revolutionary Age 2, no. 4 (26 July 1919): cover. Published in 1918 and 1919 in New York by the national organ of the Left Wing Section of the Socialist Party, this publication covered the status of Socialism in Europe. It was absorbed by the Communist in Chicago.

18. Pagan, May 1921. Published between 1916 and 1922 and edited by Joseph Kling and Hart Crane, it was described as a "magazine for eudaemonists," those subscribing to the concept that personal happiness was a legitimate ethical goal.

19. Liberator, August 1922. Published between 1918 and 1924 and edited by Max and Crystal Eastman, the Liberator later merged with the Labor Herald and Soviet Russia Pictorial to form Workers Monthly.

20. "To the Ladies from William Gropper," New Pearson's, June 1923.

21. "Drawings by Wm. Gropper," Tennis, June 1931.

22. New Masses 7, no. 11 (May 1932): cover. Published between 1926 and 1948, New Masses was edited by Michael Gold, Joseph Freeman, Herman Michelson, Granville Hicks, Joseph North, and others. It merged with Mainstream to form Masses and Mainstream. This particular copy was the gift of Egmont Arens.

23. Fight against War and Fascism 2, no. 5 (March 1935): cover. This was published monthly by the National Executive Committee of the American League against War and Fascism founded in 1933. Its vice chairmen included Lincoln Steffens and Earl Browder.

24. "Gropper Visits Youngstown," Nation, 3 July 1937. The purpose of this trip was coverage of the steel mill strikes.

25. "Lizz-The Stupendous, Collossal [sic], Magnificent, Superb, Million Dollar Spectacle," Motion Picture Magazine, n.d.