William Gropper

William Gropper (1897 — 1977) was an artist and a social realist.

Gropper studied under Robert Henri and George Bellows.

He is considered one of the most significant American artists of his generation. Contributed to several other newspapers and magazines including “The New Yorker,” “Vanity Fair,” “New York Post,” and the “New Masses.”

Gropper visited Russia in 1927 with writers Theodore Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis. He covered the United Nations charter conference in San Francisco for “Freiheit” and the “New Masses,” associated with the Ash‐Can Group of social realist artists. A socialist, he had his cartoons published in radical journals such as the “Liberator,” the “Revolutionary Age,” and the “New Masses.”

On 1953 May 6, Senator Joseph McCarthy called the artist to testify before his Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Gropper became entangled in the Committeeʼs inquiry into the State Departmentʼs Information Service.

Gropper allowed the State Department to distribute prints of his painting celebrating American Folklore. Senator Tail‐Gunner considered the picture “subversive,” and questioned why copies were kept by US embassies abroad. To avoid self-“incrimination,” Gropper plead the Fifth (another source says he refused to appear).

Tail‐Gunner believed the picture featuring the likenesses of folk characters such as Paul Bunyan and Rip Van Winkle revealed valuable secrets to communists.