Robert Gwathmey was known for his paintings of southern blacks. He studied at the Maryland Institute of Design in Baltimore for a year in 1925 and then for four years in Philadelphia at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts with Franklin Watkins (1894-1972), winning two Cresson European Traveling Scholarships there. In the 1930s he taught art in Pennsylvania at Beaver College, Glenside, and the Carnegie Institute of Technology; Pittsburgh. His work of that decade was still immature, largely studio pictures reflecting the influence of Watkins. Gwathmey later destroyed most of these works. In 1942 he began teaching in New York City at the Cooper Union.

It was in the mid-1930s that his mature themes first emerged with The Hitchhiker, c. 1936 (Brooklyn Museum). During summer visits home in the early 1940s Gwathmey became aware of the plight of the southern black, and he began to portray them. Although Gwathmey did not overlook the harsh realities of their rural life, he always presented them with dignity. Despite this basis in social commentary, Gwathmey developed a somewhat decorative, abstracted style influenced by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Henri Matisse (18691954), MARSDEN HARTLEY, José Orozco (1883-1949), and African art. In the early 1940s he painted his images in bright, matte, and often sweet colors, outlined in black and simplified into multifaceted forms by cubist fracturing, with an overall, flat, patterning effect. According to the artist the images are simplified so that their con
tent can be clearly understood. While his paintings appear naïve, they are actually quite sophisticated. Varying his style little after the 1940s-his later paintings have more the appearance of drawings and stained-glass windowsGwathmey did expand his themes to include urban life, the aged, and flowers. Gwathmey also worked in the serigraph medium.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Harry Salpeter, "Gwathmey’s Editorial Art," Esquire 21 (June 1944): 82-83, 131-32 § New York, A.C.A. Gallery, Robert Gwathmey, exh. cat., 1946, with essay by Paul Robeson § Elizabeth McCausland, "Robert Gwathmey," Magazine of Art 39 (April 1946): 148-52, with interview with the artist § Saint Mary’s City, Md., Saint Mary’s College of Maryland, and New York, Terry Dintenfass, Inc., Robert Gwathmey, exh. cat., 1976, with introduction by Jonathan Ingersoll, chronology, list of exhibitions § Judd Tully, "Robert Gwathmey," American Artist 49 (June 1985): 46-50, 88, 90-92.