The Rag Pickers

Robert Spencer distinguished himself as a Pennsylvania Impressionist and a member of the New Hope school of painters who worked in the vicinity of the Delaware River. He lived a peripatetic life; born in Harvard, Nebraska, his father, a Swedenborgian minister, moved the family to Illinois, Missouri, Pennsylvania, New York, and Virginia before Spencer graduated from high school. He had the intention to study medicine but switched to art and enrolled at the New York National Academy of Design. His early adult years were marked by extreme poverty coupled with vigorous activity as a painter, even collecting awards for his work.

In the Rag Pickers, Spencer presents a snapshot of the urban poor in 1920s America. His stylistic technique, composed of short, firm brushstrokes is clearly visible. The buildings evoke a European industrial town, however topographical accuracy was never the goal of Spencer. He imparts a dignity to the workers in the slight romanticizing of the scene, yet communicates their fate, nonetheless. The buildings dominate the composition. Human presence is confined to the flanks. On the left, bare-armed, sturdy women and children crowd around two men who wear bowler hats and white shirts. Presumably they are distributing money to the crowd in return for the large pile of rags they gathered, visible on the right.

Spencer enjoyed success and popularity initially, but a troubled personal life contributed to his early death: he committed suicide at age fifty-one.