Dancer

Fred G. Becker

Fred Becker was accepted into the Graphic Arts Division of the WPA. Becker worked in the WPA between 1935 and the day he was "laid off" of the project in the summer of 1939. An exhibition in 1937 at the Federal Art Project Gallery in New York included two of his prints and the following year his work was exhibited at the Willard Gallery in New York.

When Stanley William Hayter relocated his famous Atelier 17 to New York in 1940 as the war expanded, Becker was among the first to sign up for classes. He found there another free, informal and imaginative place to learn and work.

Hayter, one of the original "Surrealists" back in Paris, brought the surrealist concepts to the U.S., including the "automatic line." This composition, "Dancer", was done using engraving, drawing directly on the copper plate with a graver. The image straddles his social imagery from the Depression and the free-flowing dream-like surrealist symbolism of the subconscious mind.