Untitled (Worker trampling swastika)

New Masses, December 15, 1936

David Alfaro Siqueiros

Holding a formidable weapon with clenched fists, a central working-class figure tramples a giant swastika. The worker’s determination is indicative of leftist artists’ protest against fascism. Beginning in the mid-1930s, many American arts organizations organized boycotts against U.S. interaction with countries under Fascist control. Siqueiros uses this illustration to bring attention to the worker’s political action while calling for greater popular support of the antifascist movement. The face and identity of the worker is largely obscured, allowing the viewer to imagine herself in the place of the resolute individual.

Margaret Ruddy