''Negro Mother and Child'' is a 1934 sculpture by American artist Maurice Glickman (1906–1981). The

New Deal artwork New Deal artwork is an umbrella term used to describe the creative output organized and funded by the Roosevelt administration's New Deal response to the Great Depression. This work produced between 1933 and 1942 ranges in content and form from ...

was produced under the early

Public Works of Art Project The Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) was a New Deal work-relief program that employed professional artists to create sculptures, paintings, crafts and design for public buildings and parks during the Great Depression in the United States. The ...

and later installed in a courtyard at the

Main Interior Building The Main Interior Building, officially known as the Stewart Lee Udall Department of the Interior Building, located in Washington, D.C., is the headquarters of the United States Department of the Interior. Located in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood ...

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

This sculpture appeared in a Corcoran Gallery exhibition of PWAP artworks in Washington, D.C. President and Mrs. Roosevelt attended the gala opening of the show on Tuesday, April 24, 1934. Edward A. Jewell, the ''New York Times'' art critic, called ''Negro Mother and Child'' "the exhibition's one outstanding piece of sculpture...a work of remarkable insight and plastic strength." It was one of just 11 sculptures exhibited at the 600-piece exhibition and "unquestionably stole the show." Reportedly, when

Franklin Delano Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...

saw the plaster cast of this sculpture, he said "it ought to be cast in bronze." Someone paid for the

bronze casting Lost-wax castingalso called investment casting, precision casting, or ''cire perdue'' (; borrowed from French)is the process by which a duplicate sculpture (often a metal, such as silver, gold, brass, or bronze) is cast from an original sculp ...

and sent it to the White House, the White House sent it to the

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art is an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of charge, the museum was privately established in ...

, and after a stint in the art galleries of the

1939 New York World's Fair The 1939 New York World's Fair (also known as the 1939–1940 New York World's Fair) was an world's fair, international exposition at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens, New York City, New York, United States. The fair included exhibitio ...

, it arrived to the Interior Building. The statue is located at the east end of the cafeteria courtyard and stands atop a serpentine marble base. The plaster cast went to Howard University Library. The bronze version of the sculpture is featured in the PWAP official report of 1934. The sculpture is recognized as a "powerful comment on the plight of African-Americans" before and during the Great Depression. According to ''Artists on the left: American artists and the Communist movement, 1926-1956'': In 2011 the ''

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'' mentioned ''Negro Mother and Child'' amongst a handful of other public artworks in the national capital city that "flesh out the story of the nation" with representations of the African-American experience.

References

{{Reflist 1934 sculptures Public Works of Art Project Outdoor sculptures in Washington, D.C. Bronze sculptures in Washington, D.C.