Like Winslow Homer, Robert Gwathmey (1903-1988) was a pioneer in presenting the dignity and beauty of African American life. More than Homer, Gwathmey showed African American’s working and struggling to survive. Both artists also conveyed the toil of humble whites living off the land or sea. 

Though Gwathmey secured significant attention and financial success during his lifetime, he is chiefly known today among scholars and curators of American art. Dr. Michael Kammen, author of the new book Robert Gwathmey: The Life and Art of a Passionate Observer, wrote in the catalogue that the artist "was, indeed, a moralist, yet not strident-a wry satirist, and a dazzling colorist….He was ultimately a painter of the family of man--of men, women, and children of all colors and conditions. He simply saw humanity where others could not avoid distinctions of race or class, sectional myths or parochial stereotypes."

Born in Richmond, VA, Gwathmey personally experienced the challenges faced by the working class at a formative age. His father, a railroad engineer, died in a terrible train accident before Gwathmey's birth, leaving his mother and later her children to work in low-paying jobs to make ends meet. The children held part-time jobs around their schoolwork and Gwathmey once reported that he recognized the social inequalities in his community at an early age. Oddly enough, he developed a greater interest in art while working on a freighter during the 1920s. He drew to fill up his free time, often sketching other crew members, and when the ship stopped at European ports, he began to visit museums and galleries. When, at 22, he returned to the United States, he enrolled at the Maryland Institute of Design in Baltimore and later at the prestigious Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia.

His experiences in the North and his travels expanded his outlook and provided points of comparison with life in the South. As a student and young artist, he received fellowships to study in Europe. When Gwathmey returned to Virginia., he was struck even more by social injustice and the plight of African Americans. With the onslaught of the Great Depression, Gwathmey, like many intellectuals and artists, was drawn to efforts to reform America's economic and social structure. Artist Rosalie Hook, whom he married in 1935, shared many of his political views and his concern for the marginalized and encouraged the direction he was taking in his art.

Gwathmey had a deep empathy for working people, black and white—painting tobacco farmers, cotton pickers and common laborers. In 1944, Gwathmey received a Rosenwald Foundation Fellowship, which he used to live on a North Carolina tobacco farm for a year. He worked with the sharecroppers three days a week, formed friendships, and also pursued his art. The 1999 Gwathmey exhibition curator in St. Petersburg, FL, August L. Freundlich has written that "in portraying the southern black farmer, Gwathmey achieved his best and strongest work." 

Even though he spent most of his adult years in the North, Gwathmey continued to return to the South, largely through his memories, for inspiration. As so many scholars have pointed out, the South has an incredibly strong sense of place that is nigh impossible to escape. The possible "narratives" found in Gwathmey's work may be related, in part, to the South's great storytelling tradition.

The geometric backgrounds in selected works also bring to mind some African textiles and African-American quilts, and some of the figures in his paintings recall African sculpture. The great African-American actor and singer Paul Robeson observed that Gwathmey's "identification with the South brought him close to the culture of Africa and its classic sculpture." It is easy to see why contemporary black artist Faith Ringgold, known for her story quilts, claims Gwathmey as an influence. Gwathmey's other influences ranged from the Barbizon artist Jean-François Millet, known for his paintings of humble folk, to Honoré Daumier, especially his more satiric work and caricatures. He was also drawn to Rouault's use of color and Picasso's experimentation. Some of his paintings reveal his admiration for Cubism. Gwathmey's work fell out of favor during the heyday of Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism, but was rediscovered when the art world began to open up in the 1960s and 1970s. In addition to creating his own art, Gwathmey taught at various colleges and universities throughout his life, including for twenty-five years at New Pork's Cooper Union. In fact, he taught night classes after teaching or often painting nearly all day, and his son, architect Charles Gwathmey, remembers that "he [his father] believed that anyone who could work at a job by day and still have the energy to go to school at night to pursue art deserved this extra time and commitment." He added: "I feel privileged and humbled by my father's life example that is both inspirational and demanding. I love a man who always left more than he took and who remains my conscience and moral reinforcement."

Robert Gwathmey: Master Painter at the St. Petersburg, FL Museum of Art was held November 7-December 26, 1999.

Museum Collections include: Addison Gallery of American Art; Amon Carter Museum  of Art; Bone Creek Museum of Agrarian Art; Butler Institute of American Art; Cameron  Art Museum; Dallas Museum of Art; De Young Museum; Frederick R Weisman Art Museum; George Walter Vincent Smith Museum; Georgia Museum of  Art; Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden; Los Angeles Museum of Art; Maier Museum of Art; Mead Art Museum; Memorial Art Gallery; Michele and Donald D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts; Morris Museum of Art; Museum of Art and Archeology, U-Missouri; Museum of Fine Arts Boston; New Jersey State Museum; Oklahoma City Museum of Art; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Reynolds House-Museum of American Art;  San Diego Museum of Art; Sarah Moody Gallery of Art;  Sheldon Museum of Art; Smithsonian American Art Museum; Telfair Museum of Art; The Arkansas Arts Center; The Brooklyn Museum of Art; The Columbus Museum of Art-Ohio; The Columbus Museum-Georgia; Newark Museum; The University of Michigan Museum of Art; University of Wyoming Art Museum; Whitney Museum of American Art and more