The frankstage at lloyd wright theater in tempe, arizona. Visits thestory tv art museum to learn more about the collection of political art. The print collection is one of the largest at the museum. 7000 works on paper, and they are cared for and stored and made available for close study and viewing here in the print study room. One of the areas of concentration within the print collection is artists dealing with social and political content. A lot of these artists throughout history have recognized the art forms ability to bring about social change. They are just like us, living in their own time frame, and they want to reflect upon what is going on around them. And potentially influence society with their work. And the amazing thing about prints is it allows them to be powerful social tools, really, is they are relatively inexpensive to produce. They are multiple. They are less expensive to acquire. And so they really penetrate all aspects of society. And they are excellent platform with which to convey information, both image and text. A lot of artists have used print specifically for this reason. So we selected today from the collection a range of prints from the 18th century through to contemporary of artists dealing with social and political content. And what is really amazing is that while a lot of the specifics change so, the setting, the customs, the specific details of the current event the broader issues remain the same. These artists are dealing with things like political corruption , the difference between rich and the poor, war and the impact of war. Throughout these prints, throughout history, you see the artists dealing with the same issues. The first prints i pulled were by an english artist who lived in london and william hogarth. He set up his own studio in 1820. The prince i show you today art from the 1740s and 1750s. s best known as the centers and he produced these large editions of engravings, almost like a graphic novel, and bten in very witty and iting look at what is going on around him and society around him. Is takingce, this ever get the habits of the very wealthy taking a look at the habits of the very wealthy. It is the story of a couple who are married off by their parents for game. Here you have on the left lord squander, who is showing his family tree, and his marrying off his son, over here on the right in very fashionable dress but already received dissipation because he has a black spot on his neck, which means he has syphilis. He is back from his tour of the continent. And then this is a rich merchant who is interested in marrying off his daughter to gain entry into the aristocracy. In the background you see a new mansion that lord squander is building. And so he needs to gain resources to sell off his son for that reason. And here he has a crutch, and his foot is bound because he has gout from his extreme living, eating, and drinking. Here you have the daughter looking very depressed about this situation, but being talked into the marriage by a lawyer, who is called silver tongue. And here on the right you always have to look for the details in hogarths prints are a pair of dogs chained together just like the couple who is going to be chained together in life. This series runs through several pieces and ends with the sun son dying in a duel and the daughter committing suicide. Incomplete dissipation, having spent all their money. Now we jump to the late 19thcentury, early 20th century, and look at 2 german artists who both concentrated on the impact of war, world war i and world war ii, in germany. But also the plight of the poor. War on woment of and children and others involved. A germans expressionist artist who became active in the late 19th century. As i was talking about earlier, she was an artist who very consciously chose printmaking as medium, new as her in order to get the work out there, in order to talk about her concerns with society. So her husband was actually a doctor in berlin, and she came into contact with a lot of his workingclass patients, and a lot of her work is dealing with the plight of the poor, and particularly mothers and children. This is a really powerful piece called bread, and she has written it here at the bottom. A mother with 2 hungry children she is trying to pacify. The next piece is a piece called revolution, in which she shows the downtrodden, the poor, trying to break out of their restrictions. Pieceis piece here is a by an artist named george gross. He was actually active between the wars world war i and world war ii. And he actually fought briefly in world war i. And a lot of his work from between the wars is looking at the complete breakdown in German Society between the wars, which brought about not seasoned which brought about naziism. A lot of his work shows the veterans who have become beggars, who are starving, who nowinjured in the war and have no recourse, no profession. Again, showing the impact of the war. Interestingly, kathy colditz had personal impact of the war. She had a son die in world war i and a grandson died in world war ii. Kathy colberts work is basically banned by the nazis in world war ii and she lost her position at her german university. Now we are going to move to a selection of work by contemporary artists who are using the print medium in order to talk about social and political issues. Artistre all works by an and here you see the ability of our visitors to take a close look at our prints. None of these are behind glass. They can really see the quality of the paper, the quality of the print itself, the contrast between light and dark and the use of the grays in between to create these powerful images using a variety of print techniques. This is a powerful piece about the anita hill hearings, when she made very specific claims of Sexual Harassment against clarence thomas. And here you can see her interpretation of those hearings, where she felt an email was demonized where she felt anita hill was demonized, and she is almost like a witch with her hands tied, flames coming up from below. This sort of halloweeny which broomstick upnd above. Tabloid New York Post on the left with id like to kkk inmerikka, with america. Very specific senators who were in those hearings as well. This collection is our second largest collection. We have some powerful works in particular from the 1930s by an american artist we would like to share with you today. We are going to take a look at one of the hidden gems of the Ceramics Research centers collection, and that is three barnettes by russell aiken, a wellknown socialite, philanthropist, artist, and oddly, big game hunter who lives in new york city and hung out with the other wealthy types in new york city. These pieces were created in 1938, just before the United States entered world war ii. What were looking at our the the threees are pieces by Russell Barnett aiken. On the left we start with a sculpture of Franklin Delano roosevelt. He is riding on a democratic donkey. He is holding up a microphone. An attempt under his right arm is a battleship and talked under his right arm is a battleship, worship just to his right, sculpture of bonito miscellany. Mussolini. Benito you can see an ethiopian figure thumbing their nose at mussolini as they look up. Sos is preworld war ii, Russell Barnett is looking at these figures through the lens of the United States, which is not yet gone to war against these countries. Finally, we see an image of adult hitler. Adolf hitler. Kampf is in his left hand. His right hand is giving up w a sigheil. Into her arm. Maybe he is talking about eugenics and hitler wanting the aryans to propagate. And there is a sign, the new order, with an arrow pointing forward. I think that we can view these sculptures through a couple of different lenses. Preworldm is that war ii and only during world war ii, there is a populist lens we can look at these through. People in the United States were engaged in art in a direct way and used to seeing art that made statements. Through the Works Progress administration, artists like diego rivera, people in the United States were used to seeing murals that made a direct statements. We can definitely relate these sculptures with the political winds at the time. But the other lens you can look at this thread is through the lens of socialites and wealthy people in new york city. In 1938, before the United States entered world war ii, you were already seeing the nazis driving out the jews, the collectors, the wealthy some of the wealthy jewish residents in germany. Manylso many artists, creatives were migrating. Ilieu inthe mill you m new york city that Russell Barnett aiken would have been commenting on at the time he was never somebody who hit his own beliefs and opinions. And that is when you see in all of these little details. Ercolating up these sculptures this weekend we are featuring the history of tempe, arizona, with our Cox Communication partners. And other about tempe cities on cspan. Org citiestour. You are watching American History tv, all weekend every weekend, on cspan3. Decided to spend more time on the younger grant, i spent a week at west point. Trying to figure out how he 39ld figure out 21st out of at west point, and sometimes viewed by biographers as an intellectual lightweight. And yet he said i must apologize, i spent all my time reading novels. Sunday night on q a, historian on the life and career of the 18th u. S. President in his book american ulysses. He convened a meeting of africanamerican leaders in the white house and he said to them, i look forward to the day when railroad or on a eat in a restaurant. And for every person, regardless of their race, that they must come. It came 90 years for that day to come. Grant was the last president to hold those kinds of use. Reviews. Onsunday at 8 00 eastern q a. Staiti on paul artists of the revolutionary period. Fraunces Tavern Museum in new york city hosted the event. It is over an hour. We are delighted to have paul staiti. He teaches at Mount Holyoke college and is the author of several books on american artists. He has curated exhibitions at the metropolitan museum of art and fine arts in boston. He