America at Work
Hooray for the laborer! On the first Monday of September, we honor the social and economic achievements of working people.Honore Sharrer began painting scenes of American working people shortly after being employed as a shipyard welder during World War II.
She borrowed the format for Tribute to the American Working People from medieval Italian religious paintings that illustrate the lives of saints. In the center a factory worker replaces the saint, and on either side his family is seen enjoying the ordinary activities of American life.
This painting will soon be on view at the Telfair Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia, where our traveling exhibition Scenes of American Life:Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum runs from September 12 through November 12, 2000.
Pictured top: Honore Sharrer, born 1920, Tribute to the American Working People, 1951, oil on composition board, 38 3/4 x 77 1/4 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Sara Roby Foundation.
Source: Virginia Mecklenburg. Scenes from American Life: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (exhibition text, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 1999).
Pictured bottom: Honore Sharrer, born 1920, Tribute to the American Working People (detail).