Woman Ironing

Julius Tanzer|WPA

1935–43 · Lithograph · Drawings and Prints

This luminous image of a woman ironing is one of tens of thousands of prints published in the 1930s and 1940s by the Works Progress Administration (WPA, also called the Work Projects Administration), an agency operated by the United States government to provide widespread work relief during the Great Depression. Like many other artists employed by the WPA’s Federal Art Project, New York printmaker Tanzer produced images that depict Americans at work—both inside and outside of the home. Whether the woman portrayed here is taking care of her own household or that of an employer, her quiet concentration on her task reflects the print’s immediate context as well as the longer visual tradition around women engaged in domestic work.

Artist

Julius Tanzer|WPA

Date

1935–43

Medium

Lithograph

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Gift of the Work Projects Administration, New York, 1943