ALETHEA ROCKWELL: As someone who works as an educator
here at the museum, I'm always thinking
about how to bring the public closer to works of art,
how to make them meaningful for them.
And I think this is what this image is also about.
It's the artist thinking through what working-class people make
of these art objects, how we remake the meaning of works
of art for our own realities in this present moment,
and how we give meaning to artworks based on what life
is actually like right now.
My name is Alethea Rockwell, I'm an associate educator
for adult and academic programs.
This is called Workers and Paintings.
It's by Honoré Sharrer, and it was made in 1943.
This was actually made for a mural competition
for a museum in Springfield, Massachusetts,
and it was meant to be a visualization of the museum's
place in the community.
She made this when she was a young woman,
and she was working as a welder.
And what Sharrer has done here, which I actually
think is really subversive, is she's taken these works of art
and imagined removing them from the pristine space
of the gallery and placed them directly
into the lived reality of working-class people
in this industrial town.
They're not reacting to these works of art
with awe or wonder.
Most of them seem pretty disinterested in the artworks.
I get the impression they have more important things
to think about.
There's these people who are maybe having a little argument
or something.
This person's swinging his lunch pail in front of this painting
by Picasso.
Doesn't seem to be too concerned about that.
And then, there's this amazing child
who is pulling a face at this Picasso painting, which
I think is partially also the artist poking fun
at the abstract style of this image, which is obviously
in extreme contrast to the hyper-realistic style
that Sharrer paints in.
The colors in the background of this painting are quite dark.
You might say they're somber.
And there are actually a couple troubling details here.
There's a graveyard over to the right, which
you have to remember that this painting was made in 1943.
It was made in the middle of the Second World War,
so the loss of life was quite present
in these people's world.
There's also this figure that you can see.
I think it's lurking behind this mother and child.
And to me, it's like the ghost of a child that died early.
Sharrer is placing these works of art
into the very real lives of these people that
are complex and dark and some moments tragic.
But I also really love this one detail
of this butterfly that seems out of place, almost
a little surreal.
It's stuck on this child's head, and it's
really open for interpretation.
It could mean a lot of different things, but to my mind,
it's saying something about how we all
have ways of being creative, of making art,
making transformative art even.
And that should all be valued at the same level
as these paintings that she's placed in the scene.