Working-Class Girls Don't Become Artists: Looking at Art and Class

Writing from a working-class perspective, Janet Zandy links labor and art to challenge the unnamed class biases in systems of art curation, categorization and expertise. Zandy orchestrates the voices of nine artists – Käthe Kollwitz and Elizabeth Catlett, Ruth Asawa and Marilyn Anderson, Milton Rogovin and Jens S. Jensen, Mark Rogovin and muralism, Ralph Fasanella, and Raymond Mason – whose work aligns with the histories and living conditions of working-class people. These paired portraits open larger conversations about class and artistic formation, intent, and accessibility. Zandy presents a model for writing about art in an inclusive, theoretically informed, and creatively constructed way. Art, as Zandy shows, is not a rare fruit to be plucked by the chosen few. Art is a human necessity and crucial for the sustenance of democracy. Ambitious and original, Working-Class Girls Don't Become Artists rewrites art history from a working-class perspective.