Girl (aka: Negro Girl or Head)

Blanche Grambs

Blanche Grambs' forty nine graphic works were done in a six year period for the Works Project Administration (WPA) between 1934 and 1939, where she produced a group of powerful social commentaries, a number of which were portraits. Grambs has not been included in many of the publications that chronicle the artists of the Depression and works by women artists, and that is an oversight. An article about her and a raisonné of her work was done by artist/art historian James Wechsler for Print Quarterly, volume 13, number 4, 1996, pages 376-396.

"Negro Girl" is an aquatint and etching, done with a blue-green color plate. The portrait is simple and strong, a thoughtfully bemused young woman with her left arm resting on her head, though her hand appears to be prepared for action. Grambs adds a subtly patterned background, wallpaper perhaps, and a second, more delicate pattern on the subject's blouse. This is one of her last images and projects a sense of hope, something her earlier work did not.

This rare work was one of the last prints Grambs did for the New York City WPA Art Project and has its stamp in the lower left margin. The WPA etchings were usually printed in "editions" of 25 or fewer impressions and were not originally meant to be sold.

This impression is pencil titled "Negro Girl" and signed "Grambs" in an unknown hand, probably for identification purposes. There are two other impressions in museums, one signed the other unsigned.