Marguerite Zorach and the New Deal: Lecture by Betsy Fahlman

A week prior to the opening of the exhibition Marguerite Zorach: An Art Filled Life (open June 17 to January 7), art historian Betsy Fahlman, will give a special introduction to Marguerite Zorach. While scholarship on Zorach has traditionally emphasized her modernist work, few have considered her work under the New Deal. Between 1938 and 1942, Zorach received four commissions for post offices in Peterborough, New Hampshire; Ripley, Tennessee; Fresno, California; and Monticello, Indiana. All were executed in her Maine studio, where she drew on the people, animals, and landscapes she had become familiar with at Robinhood Farm. The New Deal era was a productive period for Zorach, and her post office murals aligned representational modes with the modernist practice characteristic of her work through the twenties.

A New Hampshire native, Betsy Fahlman has been a professor of art history at Arizona State University since 1988. A specialist in American art, her scholarship has a strong focus on American modernism, the New Deal, and women artists. She comes to Maine every year to spend several weeks on Monhegan Island.