Mabel Dwight
In the Crowd
1931
Not on view
Date
1931
Classification
Prints
Medium
Lithograph
Dimensions
Sheet: 11 5/16 × 15 13/16in. (28.7 × 40.2 cm) Image (Irregular): 9 1/2 × 11 3/4in. (24.1 × 29.8 cm)
Accession number
98.8.1
Edition
Ed. 32
Publication
Printed by George C. Miller; published by Weyhe Gallery
Credit line
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Print Committee
Rights and reproductions
© artist or artist’s estate
In the Crowd is a close-up portrait of six Depression-era passersby, who stand in physical proximity while appearing remote from one another, their faces filled with a sense of looming despair. Although Mabel Dwight spent years working as an illustrator in New York, she only began to produce lithographs in 1927, using the medium to gently poke fun at social mores. The economic downturn, however, transformed her subject matter, as she felt compelled to represent the social and emotional realities of the Depression. Here, the well-defined, physically solid figures—whose troubled visages are marked by furrowed brows, dark undereye circles, and plaintive expressions—seem to reflect Dwight’s belief in the unshakable dignity of her fellow urban dwellers during this period. As Dwight’s gallerist wrote in 1937: “Each is a portrait and a personality.”