The Mission

Raphael Soyer's lithograph The Mission presents five downtrodden men, three wearing the flat caps of ordinary working-class types, who crowd around a table as they drink from tin mugs and partake of slices of bread. The furrowed brow, gaunt cheeks, and resigned empty stare of the sipping man on the far right convey the anxiety caused by his unfortunate situation. The model for this figure was Walter Broe, a homeless man Soyer had encountered some years before he made this print and whom he occasionally engaged as a model for his depictions of down-and-out New Yorkers. Broe introduced the artist to the local mission (a charitable institution offering food in exchange for listening to a sermon) that inspired this scene. While Soyer's image conveys the factual immediacy of a sketch executed on site, it was in fact based on a painting for which he posed Broe and his fellow habitués of the Bowery (a New York street frequented by the down-and-out) in his studio. Broe appears in other Soyer paintings, drawings, and prints of Bowery subjects. Soyer achieved the softened shadows and blurred edges of his forms by means of subtle cross-hatching with the lithographic crayon.

Known primarily for his portraits and figural paintings and drawings, Soyer also began making prints early in his career, using etching and, beginning in the 1920s, lithography. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, he made some of his most important prints, notably this one. Shortly after it was printed, The Mission was widely exhibited and reproduced. Admired for its sensitive portrayal of humanity, the print came to symbolize the plight of millions of needy Americans, many of whom gratefully received sustenance provided by charity during a time of nationwide privation.

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.]

The Left Front: Radical Art in "the Red Decade," 1929-1940,  Mary & Leigh Block Museum of Art, Evanston, Illinois (organizer) Venues: Mary & Leigh Block Museum of Art, Evanston, Illinois, January 17–May 22, 2014; Gray Art Gallery, New York University, New York, New York, January 13–April 4, 2015. [exh. cat.]

In the Streets: Modern Life and Urban Experiences in the Art of the United States, 1893-1976 (Pelas ruas: vida moderna e experiências urbanas na arte dos Estados Unidos, 1893–1976). Terra Foundation for American Art and Pinacoteca de São Paulo (organizers). Venue: Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil, August 27, 2022–January 30, 2023. [exh. cat.]

Cole, Sylvan with foreword by Jacob Kainen. Raphael Soyer: Fifty Years of Printmaking 1917–1967. New York: Da Capo Press, 1967. No. 27.

"Raphael Soyer, Realist, Captures that 'Haunted Look of the Unemployed,'" Art Digest: 12, (March 15, 1938): p. 12.

 Goodrich, Lloyd. Raphael Soyer. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1967. Ill. p. 8.

Gettings, Frank. Raphael Soyer: Sixty-five Years of Printmaking. (exh. cat., Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1982. No. 33, p. 36.

Jacobowitz, Ellen S. and George H. Marcus. American Graphics, 1860–1940, Selected from the Collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. (exh. cat., Philadelphia Museum of Art). Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1982. No. 97, p. 101.

Adams, Clinton. American Lithographers, 1900–1960: The Artists and Their Printers. Albuquerque, New Mexico: The University of New Mexico Press, 1983. Ill. p. 135.

Cartwright, Derrick R. and Paul J. Karlstrom. American Moderns, 1900–1950. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2000. Ill. no. 12, p. 68 (black & white).

Cartwright, Derrick R. and Paul J. Karlstrom. L'Amérique et les modernes, 1900–1950. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2000. Ill. no. 12, p. 68 (black & white).

Piccoli, Valéria, Fernanda Pitta, and Taylor Poulin. Pelas ruas: vida moderna e experiências urbanas na arte dos Estados Unidos, 1893-1976. (exh. cat., Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo and Terra Foundation for American Art). São Paulo, Brazil: Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, 2022. Text p. 13, 84; pl. p. 105 (color).