William Gropper and His Circle

ACA Galleries is pleased to present an intimate exhibition celebrating the work of leading social realist artist William Gropper in dialogue with works by painters Philip Evergood and Robert Gwathmey. William Gropper and His Circle is presented in conjunction with William Gropper: Artist of the People—the first exhibition dedicated to Gropper in Washington D.C.—now on view at The Phillips Collection through January 5, 2025. 

The exhibition now on view at the storied W 20th Street location features paintings spanning three decades of Gropper’s practice, alongside works by Evergood and Gwathmey, his friends and artistic peers. For almost 90 years, ACA Galleries has exhibited Gropper’s art, which remains as relevant today as it was in the 1930s.

One of America’s most prominent Social Realists, William Gropper (1897-1977) was an American painter, muralist, political cartoonist, printmaker, and activist. His cartoons and caricatures appeared in mainstream publications such as Vanity Fair and the New York Tribune, as well as more radical papers like the New Masses, Rebel Worker, and Morning Freiheit. His socially conscious work went beyond simple demonstrations of support for the worker to the condemnation of racism, fascism, anti-Semitism, and governmental corruption.

During the 1930s, Gropper worked for the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Treasury Relief Art Project, creating murals for federal buildings nationwide. He also co-founded the John Reed Club, the Artists Union, and the American Artists’ Congress. In 1936, ACA Galleries held his first solo painting exhibition, publishing a significant catalogue of his work in 1938.

Gropper’s career expanded internationally in 1943 when the War Department Art Advisory Committee sent him to Africa to document the war. In 1944, he won first prize in lithography at the Artists for Victory exhibit at The Metropolitan Museum. After the WPA’s dissolution in 1947, he co-founded the Artists Equity Association.

Though called before McCarthy’s investigation committee in 1953, Gropper’s artistic contributions were widely celebrated through numerous museum exhibitions. The Lowe Art Gallery at the University of Miami organized a major retrospective in 1968, and ACA Galleries presented Gropper: Fifty Years of Drawing in 1971.

Gropper earned multiple awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Carnegie International award, a Ford Foundation residency, and a Tamarind Fellowship. He was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1968 and the National Academy of Design in 1974.