B&W photo from 1941 of fresco Ruta painted in the basement of the Art Students League. Fresco class taught by Jean Charlot, French painter who trained the Mexican muralists. Every year his students were given a wall to paint on and every year the wall was cleaned to give space to the next year’s class. By late 1941 the US was at war and no more fresco classes were offered for many years. And thus part of the original work by Ruta and others from that year is still visible although not open to the public right now, in the League basement. Ruta paints himself as the observer, upper left hand corner, watching Henry Ford’s thugs beat union organizer Walter Reuter of the Union of Automobile Workers during a strike in Dearborn, MI. Note the laundry flapping on the roof above Ruta’s head, a recurring motif in his work for decades, a little homage to the baroque and to washerwomen everywhere.
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