Thelma Johnson Streat, The Negro in Professional Life—Mural Study Featuring Women in the Workplace, 1944

Sarah Humphreville: Thelma Johnson Streat was an artist who was born in Washington State and primarily grew up in the Pacific Northwest.

Narrator: Senior Curatorial Assistant Sarah Humphreville is one of the organizers of this exhibition. 

Sarah Humphreville: This is one of a group of twelve works that she intended to make on the theme of African Americans in professional life. When you look at it, you see that the figures that are laboring are all African American women. And there are white figures that either stand idly by or in supervisory roles. At the very center of the composition, she's placed a sign that says, "Help Wanted. White Only." And that sign stands in opposition to an executive order that was issued in 1941, which was, "Executive Order 8802" that explicitly prohibited discrimination in the defense industry. And Streat alludes to this specifically in the figure at the very bottom in the center of the composition, who's clutching a piece of paper in her hand, and when you look closely, you can see that it says "880"—the 2 is blocked—and then it picks up again on the other side of her fist and says "Order." So there's a real acknowledgement of the hypocrisy in the workplace, the defiance of legal norms in favor of discrimination.

Narrator: In 1940, Streat had worked with Diego Rivera on a fresco in San Francisco. She was one of the only assistants that Rivera trusted to apply paint to the mural itself. He later described her work as being “one of the most interesting manifestations in this country at present."