Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Study for Herrin Massacre

Paul Cadmus
1904-1999

Study for Herrin Massacre

1940
7 x 5 1/4 inches (17.8 x 13.3 cm)
Pen and black ink, gray wash, over graphite, on cream paper; framing lines in black ink.
2005.51

Bequest of John M. Thayer.

© Paul Cadmus / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Notes
This is one of a group of studies for a 1940 painting depicting the Herrin Massacre, also known as the Lester Strip Mine Massacre, of 1922. A contract dispute in the town of Herrin, Illinois erupted into a violent confrontation in which twenty-three men, most of them company-hired strikebreakers, were killed by union members. Cadmus visited the site in 1939. Rather than locate the scene near the coal mine, he chose to set it in a cemetery. Although the painting was part of a commission from Life magazine to illustrate significant events, it was never published.
Inscriptions/Markings
Signed in pen and brown ink at lower right, "Cadmus"; inscribed in graphite below image at lower left, "Herrin Massacre #2 / Originally delivered to Midtown 4/6/43 / returned to PC for reframing 30/VI/58".
Artist
Classification
Century Drawings