"All the News That's Fit to Print"

This familiar slogan has appeared on the masthead of the New York Times since February 10, 1897.

We cannot tell if Peggy Bacon's Titan is reading the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, but he was clearly heeding the news of the day! Or was he?

Peggy Bacon began to make lithographs in 1928. Every December from 1927 to 1935 she was included in the American Printmakers exhibition at the Downtown Gallery. She was one of the original twelve members of this organization, which was formed in 1927 to offer printmakers an alternative to the jury system that still dominated most print shows.

She had so many one-person shows during those years that she often had to make prints at the last minute to show work that had not previously been on view.…

The Titan is a caricature of a man of Wall Street, particularly ironic because of the date of the print, 1929, the year of the stock market crash.

Source: Roberta K. Tarbell. Peggy Bacon: Personalities and Places (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press for the National Collection of Fine Arts, 1975).

Pictured: Peggy Bacon, 1895–1987, The Titan, 1929, lithograph, 14 13/16 x 13 1/8 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. William S. Benedict.