The American Artists Group of New York, or AAG, was one of the most extraordinary artistic experiments of the Depression era. The AAG was founded in 1934 by businessman Samuel Golden and Carl Zigrozzer, a scholar and connoisseur who would go on to become one of America’s great print curators, building the phenomenal works on paper collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. This fact alone, that Zigrosser was the eye of the AAG, was the reason for bringing together today the artists he selected to fulfill the group’s vision, which was published in its 1935 Handbook of the American Artists Group:

“The purpose of the American Artists Group is to popularize American art by making it better known to the American public. “American art has its roots in the soil of America. To live and endure at all, it must be nurtured with the understanding and appreciation of the American public.”

Importantly, the AAG wished to educate the American public about art. In its first sales catalogue of original prints produced in 1936, the AAG described and explained the different types of printmaking processes. Zigrosser provided biographies of the artists, and told the story of why this artist was deserving of attention. And in the catalogue we find a broad diversity of members. Just over ten percent of the artists were women (a small percentage by today’s standards, but a highly inclusive number back then). Many members were born in America, but others hailed from Spain, Germany, France, Hungary, Russia, the Ukraine, Mexico, and Japan. Before the AAG would morph into a greeting card company after the Second World War, it promoted the young African American artist, John Wilson.

Collectively, the AAG artists represented every region of the country. The themes depicted included traditional landscape and portraiture, but also relatively new theme of realistic city life and architecture. A number of artists the AAG promoted made strong images of protest against social injustice. All of these themes are present in Paper Visions: The American Artists Group & Their Circle.

This exhibition includes 85 works from the collection of Curator/Art Historian, Will South, Ph.D. South served as a curator, then chief curator, at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts in Salt Lake City; the Weatherspoon Art Museum in North Carolina; the Dayton Art Institute in Ohio; and finally at the Columbia Museum of Art in South Carolina. Throughout his life, he has held a special love for works of art on paper. This led him to collecting prints and drawings by American artists made roughly between 1900 and 1950. The exhibition, Paper Visons: The American Artists Group and Their Circle, was curated by the collector during the pandemic.

The exhibition will be available for circulation starting in 2024 through 2027. Please contact Landau Traveling Exhibitions for more information.

Albee, Grace (1890–1985)
Arms, John Taylor (1887–1953)
Bacon, Peggy (1895–1987)
Barker, Albert (1874–1947)
Benton, Thomas Hart (1889–1975)
Biddle, George (1885–1973)
Bishop, Isabel (1902–1988)
Blanch, Arnold (1896–1968)
Boyd, Fiske (1895–1975)
Brook, Alexander (1898–1980)
Buff, Conrad (1886-1975)
Burchfield, Charles (1893-1967)
Castellon, Federico (1914–1971)
Charlot, Jean (1898–1979)
Cheffetz, Asa (1896–1965)
Citron, Minna (1896–1991)
Cook, Howard (1901–1980)
Costigan, John (1888-1972)
Curry, John Steuart (1897–1946)
Davies, Arthur B. (1862-1928)
Denison, Harold (1887–1940)
Dwight, Mable (1875–1955)
Eby, Kerr (1889–1946)
Feine, Ernest (1894–1965)
Gág, Wanda, (1893–1946)
Geerlings, Gerald (1897–1998)
Gorsline, Douglas (1913-1985)
Flannagan, John G. (1895–1942)
Freeman, Don (1908–1978)
Friedlander, Isaac (1890–1968)
Ganso, Emil (1895-1941)
Gropper, William (1897–1977)
Higgins, Victor (1884–1949)