On Strike (En Grève)

Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen

1898 · Gillotage · Drawings and Prints

Steinlen designed the cover illustration for seventeen of the twenty-five issues of La Feuille, an anarchist, single-sheet periodical published between 1897 and 1899. This edition of October 20, 1898, reported on a builders’ strike, which brought to a halt major construction projects of the time, such as the 1900 World’s Fair site and the new Paris subway system. Fearing riots, the government called in sixty thousand troops to the city. Steinlen shows a powerful scene of confrontation in which the workers—passive, but their gaze direct—confront the threat of violence posed by the rigid soldiers and their rifles.

Artist

Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen

Date

1898

Medium

Gillotage

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Gift of Fitz Roy Carrington, 1922