O. Louis Guglielmi (American, born Egypt, 1906–1956)
About this artwork
In The River, Louis Guglielmi depicted figures overlooking an expanse of shimmering water that contrasts with the industrial landscape on the far shore. The seven women and a child wear plain clothing typical of the working class on a day of leisure. Guglielmi focused on the struggles of everyday people amid the Great Depression and the rising threat of Fascism, frequently championing the laboring classes in his art. Painted during World War II, the composition attests to the daily monotony of a country at war: the men have been transported abroad, and women now exclusively inhabit the city.
Date
Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.
John O’Connor, Jr., “Painting in the United States, 1945,” Carnegie Magazine 19, 5 (November 1945): 144–45 (ill.).
Judith A. Barter, et al., American Modernism at the Art Institute of Chicago, From World War I to 1955 (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2009), 276–77, cat. 134 (ill.).
Yang Zhigang, ed., Pathways to Modernism: American Art, 1865–1945, exh. cat. (Shanghai: Shanghai Book and Painting Press, 2018), cat. 70.
Washington, DC, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Eighteenth Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary American Oil Paintings, Mar. 21–May 2, 1943, cat. 116.
New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting: 1943–1944, Nov. 23, 1943–Jan. 4, 1944, cat. 38.
University of Nebraska, Lincoln, University Art Galleries, Morrill Hall, Fifty–Fourth Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Art, Mar. 5–Apr. 2, 1944, cat. 59.
New York, Museum of Modern Art, Art in Progress, May 1944, 114, 221 (ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago, Annual Exhibition of the Society for Contemporary American Art, Jan. 25–Feb. 18, 1945, Checklist ??.
Pittsburgh, Carnegie Institute, Painting in the United States, 1945, Oct. 11–Dec. 9, 1945, cat. 253.
Indianapolis, John Herron Art Museum, Fifty–eighth Annual Exhibition: Contemporary American Paintings, Dec. 23–Jan. 27, cat. 23.
Art Gallery of Toronto, Contemporary Paintings from Great Britain, the United States and France, with Sculpture from the United States, Nov. 4–Dec. 25, 1949, cat. 84.
New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Juliana Force and American Art: A Memorial Exhibition, Sept. 24–Oct. 30, 1949, cat. 53.
Miami, FL, Metropolitan Museum and Art Centers, American Magic Realists, Feb. 18–Mar. 27, 1977, p. 5.
New Brunswick, NJ, Rutgers University Art Gallery, O. Louis Guglielmi: A Retrospective Exhibition, Nov. 2–Dec. 21, 1980, cat. 43, fig. 62; Providence, RI, Brown University, Bell Gallery, Jan. 10–Feb. 1, 1981; State University of New York at Albany, University Art Gallery, Mar. 1–Apr. 25; New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, May 6–July 5.
Shanghai Museum, Pathways to Modernism: American Art, 1865–1945, Sept. 28, 2018–Jan. 6, 2019, cat. 70.
The artist; sold to the Downtown Gallery, New York, by 1944; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1945.
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