Skip to main contentProvenanceThe artist
Margo Pollins Schab, Inc., New York, New York
Terra Foundation for the Arts Collection, Chicago, Illinois, 1995
Exhibition HistoryPublished References
Benton Murdoch Spruance
(American, 1904–1967)
The People Work - Morning
1937
Lithograph on off-white BFK Rives wove paper
Image: 13 11/16 x 18 15/16 in. (34.8 x 48.1 cm)
Sheet: 15 15/16 x 22 7/8 in. (40.5 x 58.1 cm)
Mat: 20 x 26 in. (50.8 x 66.0 cm)
Sheet: 15 15/16 x 22 7/8 in. (40.5 x 58.1 cm)
Mat: 20 x 26 in. (50.8 x 66.0 cm)
Credit LineTerra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number1995.47.a
SignedIn graphite lower right: Benton Spruance 37; initialed in stone, lower right: bs
InterpretationThe People Work - Morning is Benton Murdoch Spruance's cross-section, compartmentalized subterranean view of a typical morning commute. Swarms of pedestrians scurry down the stairs at the upper left towards a manned subway turnstile beyond which another crush of people proceeds downstairs to the already crowded subway platform on the lower level. As men, women, and a child wait, a subway train approaches from the left; its driver, shown in profile, peers ahead. Inside the subway car, several standing passengers are engrossed in reading their newspapers. Followed by Noon (TF 1995.47.b), Evening (TF 1995.47.c), and Night (TF 1995.47.d), Morning is the first in a series of four lithographs, collectively titled The People Work, in which Spruance depicted the daily cycle of urban dwellers moving amidst crowds of strangers at different times of the day. On the Title Sheet that originally accompanied the series (TF 1995.47), Henri Marceau, then Assistant Director at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, wrote the following caption for this print: "Clanking subway turnstiles, platforms swaying, smells, uneasy strap hangers, and the press—always newspapers." This rush-hour scene on public transportation is similar to what many urban commuters still experience today. Spruance's cross-section composition compresses the experience of a densely populated metropolis into a complex narrative sequence.
Of the four prints in Spruance's series, The People Work - Morning focuses most directly on the subway. Underground rapid transit systems operated in several large American cities by the 1930s, but Spruance undoubtedly based his image on his experience of riding the subway system in his native Philadelphia, which began operation in the first decade of the twentieth century. Since the late nineteenth century, when Mary Cassatt recorded genteel female passengers in her print In the Omnibus (TF 1999.27), artists had been drawn to the subject of urban public transportation as a uniquely modern social and architectural phenomenon. Like Fritz Eichenberg's Subway (TF 1995.34), Spruance's image of typical working- and middle-class commuters reflects the populist spirit of the 1930s, when artists, especially printmakers, turned their attention to picturing ordinary Americans, often in heroic or sympathetic terms.
Of the four prints in Spruance's series, The People Work - Morning focuses most directly on the subway. Underground rapid transit systems operated in several large American cities by the 1930s, but Spruance undoubtedly based his image on his experience of riding the subway system in his native Philadelphia, which began operation in the first decade of the twentieth century. Since the late nineteenth century, when Mary Cassatt recorded genteel female passengers in her print In the Omnibus (TF 1999.27), artists had been drawn to the subject of urban public transportation as a uniquely modern social and architectural phenomenon. Like Fritz Eichenberg's Subway (TF 1995.34), Spruance's image of typical working- and middle-class commuters reflects the populist spirit of the 1930s, when artists, especially printmakers, turned their attention to picturing ordinary Americans, often in heroic or sympathetic terms.
Margo Pollins Schab, Inc., New York, New York
Terra Foundation for the Arts Collection, Chicago, Illinois, 1995
Exhibition History
Visions of a Nation: Exploring Identity through American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, August 10, 1996–January 12, 1997.
The People Work: American Perspectives, 1840–1940 (Le Travail à l'oeuvre: les artistes américains 1840–1940), Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venues: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, March 15–May 25, 2003; Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, June 8–August 17, 2003. [exh. cat.]
Expanded Galleries of American Art with Loans from the Terra Foundation for American Art Collection, [Gallery 163] The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, April 15–July 2005.
Terra Collection-in-Residence, Ashmolean Museum of Art & Archaeology, Oxford, United Kingdom, September 15, 2022–September 30, 2026.
The People Work: American Perspectives, 1840–1940 (Le Travail à l'oeuvre: les artistes américains 1840–1940), Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venues: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, March 15–May 25, 2003; Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, June 8–August 17, 2003. [exh. cat.]
Expanded Galleries of American Art with Loans from the Terra Foundation for American Art Collection, [Gallery 163] The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, April 15–July 2005.
Terra Collection-in-Residence, Ashmolean Museum of Art & Archaeology, Oxford, United Kingdom, September 15, 2022–September 30, 2026.
Fine, Ruth E. and Robert F. Looney. The Prints of Benton Murdoch Spruance. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986. No. 141, p. 110.
Master Prints of Five Centuries: The Alan and Marianne Schwartz Collection. (exh. cat., The Detroit Institute of Arts). Detroit, Michigan: The Detroit Institute of Arts, 1990. No. 106, pp. 120–21.
Bourguignon, Katherine M. and Elizabeth Kennedy. The People Work: American Perspectives, 1840–1940. (exh. cat., Terra Museum of American Art). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2003. Text pp. 22, 30 (checklist); ill. p. 52 (color). [specific reference to Terra print]
Bourguignon, Katherine M. and Elizabeth Kennedy. Le Travail à l'oeuvre: les artistes américains, 1840–1940. (exh. cat., Terra Museum of American Art). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2003. Text pp. 22, 30 (checklist); ill. p. 52 (color). [specific reference to Terra print]
Master Prints of Five Centuries: The Alan and Marianne Schwartz Collection. (exh. cat., The Detroit Institute of Arts). Detroit, Michigan: The Detroit Institute of Arts, 1990. No. 106, pp. 120–21.
Bourguignon, Katherine M. and Elizabeth Kennedy. The People Work: American Perspectives, 1840–1940. (exh. cat., Terra Museum of American Art). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2003. Text pp. 22, 30 (checklist); ill. p. 52 (color). [specific reference to Terra print]
Bourguignon, Katherine M. and Elizabeth Kennedy. Le Travail à l'oeuvre: les artistes américains, 1840–1940. (exh. cat., Terra Museum of American Art). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2003. Text pp. 22, 30 (checklist); ill. p. 52 (color). [specific reference to Terra print]
Portfolio/Print