Hassid Dancing

William Gropper's etching Hassid Dancing features a bearded man smiling as he engages in an exuberant dance: his arms and elbows are raised above his tilted head, while his legs and feet execute an energetic cross-step. Buttoned at the top, the man's coat gaps to reveal his prayer shawl. The title identifies him as a member of the Hassidim, an Eastern European Jewish sect whose adherents emphasize the joyful expression of piety, as in the dancing shown here. Although Gropper had been born into a large Jewish family who observed traditional religious ritual, he was not devout. Yet after learning of the atrocities of the Holocaust, he set out to learn more about Jewish history, and he more frequently portrayed Jewish people in his art. Figures such as the one pictured in this print were undoubtedly a familiar sight during Gropper's childhood on New York City's Lower East Side, a magnet for Jewish immigrants in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Originally, the plate for this print was larger, with more space at the left side. In the second state, Gropper had the plate trimmed. The resulting image presents the solo performer more fully inhabiting the space, and the proximity of the composition's edges accentuates his gestures. Also trimmed away was most of the artist's signature on the plate; only the last two letters remain, at lower left. This impression also bears the "ES" mark of master printer Emiliano Sorini, with whom Gropper collaborated to produce many of his etchings in a period of intense activity in the medium in the mid-1960s.

Sorini, Emiliano. Gropper - Catalogue Raissoné of the Etchings. San Francisco: Alan Wofsy Fine Arts, 1998. No. 143 (second state), p. 143.