Oranges

Sybil Andrews

1929 · Color linocut on Japanese paper · Drawings and Prints

Manual labor was a dominant theme in Andrews’s oeuvre. Oranges, which shows a line of men moving boxes of imported produce, is her first linocut to feature this subject. The men advance in a circular direction toward the open truck, their movements echoed by the shadows their bodies cast. As oranges were not grown commercially in Britain, their presence and that of the crates signal the rise of imported goods (in contrast to a reliance on domestic produce) and the global reach of the British Empire. Andrews praised hard work, both in the workforce and in art production. In addition to taking care of her younger siblings after her father moved to Canada, she was a welder during World War I, a schoolteacher, and then a secretary (at the Grosvenor School).

Artist

Sybil Andrews

Date

1929

Medium

Color linocut on Japanese paper

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Purchase, Leslie and Johanna Garfield Gift, Lila Acheson Wallace, Charles and Jessie Price, and David T Schiff Gifts, The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, Dolores Valvidia Hurlburt Bequest, Peco Foundation and Friends of Drawings and Prints Gifts, and funds from various donors, 2019