TitleUnemployment
Artist
Paul Starrett Sample
(1896 - 1974)
Date1931
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsUnframed: 36 × 40 in.
Framed: 40 1/2 × 44 3/4 × 2 5/8 in.
SignedSigned at bottom left corner: "PAUL / STARRETT / SAMPLE".
SubmissionNA diploma presentation, December 1, 1941
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY
Object number1121-P
Label TextPaul Sample's father was a construction engineer whose work took him all over the United States. Sample attended high school in Chicago and then entered Dartmouth College where he was active in football, basketball and boxing, graduating late, in 1921, after service in World War I. Soon after graduation Sample came down with tuberculosis and moved to Saranack Lake, NY to recover, where he studied painting with Jonas Lie.In 1924 Sample went to New York City, but soon thereafter they relocated to Pasadena, California. Sample entered the Otis Art Institute and by 1925 he was teaching at the University of Southern California, where he would soon become assistant professor and later head of the painting department. His work was shown widely and he joined the circle of prominent California artists that included Millard Sheets, Dan Lutz and Phil Paradise. In 1936 he and his wife spent a few months in Europe, after which Sample secured an appointment as artist-in-residence at Dartmouth College where he remained until his retirement in 1962.
Sample was a landscape and genre painter. His landscapes of the New England countryside were traditional and achieved success in commercial publications. His genre work partook of both regionalism and social realism in his depiction of the American scene. He often painted the American labor movement, particularly during the depression era. Works such as "Unemployment" and others from this period are highly designed and complex; they are not atmospheric but rather are constructed with clearly drawn lines and shapes and are influenced by Peter Bruegel. "Unemployment" is likely Los Angles and depicts the effect of the depression on the common man. This painting won the Isador Gold Medal from the National Academy in 1932.
