The Man Trip
The Man Trip, ca. 1939, Oil on Canvas
Fletcher Martin (American, 1904 – 1979)
#1959.0001.0036
Fletcher Martin was an American painter, illustrator, muralist, and educator. He worked as a printer in Los Angeles in the late 1920s, and as an assistant to Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros in the early 1930s. Martin won commissions to paint murals for the New Deal's Section of Painting and Sculpture. One of Martin’s mural studies from the New Deal period was titled Mine Rescue and depicted the dangers of the mining industry. This controversial study was rejected but now resides in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Man Trip, likewise, presents a challenging view of mining in the 1930s within the context of social realism.
