{"product_id":"wpa-era-lithograph-by-jo-cain-of-dancers-edmond-cahn-inscription","title":"WPA Era Lithograph by Jo Cain of Dancers | Edmond Cahn Inscription","description":"\u003cp\u003eHere we have Dancers, a lithograph by WPA muralist Jo Cain, titled in pencil and inscribed \"To Edmond Cahn.\" A knot of nude women fills the sheet. There arms are locked overhead with their hips swinging against a dark ground. The grain is dense enough to read like skin under a single stage light. Get close and you can see where the artist pressed hard and where he barely touched the stone.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCain spent the Depression painting walls for the public. This is what his hand did when the scaffold came down. Two of his studios later burned and took much of his early work with them. A sheet that went home with a friend had better odds.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe dedication is what keeps pulling you back. Cain and Cahn were both born in New Orleans, two years apart. Both landed in Manhattan in the 1920s. One painted murals for the government. The other spent his life writing about why injustice feels personal.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJoseph Lambert \"Jo\" Cain (1904-2003) left high school in Houma, Louisiana at sixteen to study drawing in Chicago. By 1923 he was at the Art Students League in New York under Kenneth Hayes Miller and Kimon Nicolaides. Later teachers included Arshile Gorky and Hans Hofmann. A Carnegie Fellowship sent him to the Sorbonne in 1929. Tiffany Foundation fellowships followed, and the Whitney showed his painting Burlesque at its first biennial in 1932. His 1933 mural for the New York Training School in Warwick was a state and federal commission backed by Eleanor Roosevelt. It covered roughly 20,000 square feet, and his foundation calls it the largest American mural to that date. Cain joined the New York Mural Painters Society in 1935 and worked on WPA mural projects in Phoenix. In his East 11th Street loft he founded a modernist circle called the Group. Mark Rothko and Milton Avery were among its members. In 1944 he left the city to found the art department at the University of Rhode Island.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEdmond Nathaniel Cahn (1906-1964) was born in New Orleans and earned his law degree at Tulane in 1927. Admitted to the New York bar the next year, he practiced law in Manhattan for more than two decades. Later he taught at NYU School of Law and became one of the most original American legal philosophers of his time. His 1949 book The Sense of Injustice argued that people know justice through empathy. A wrong done to someone else can register almost as a wrong done to ourselves. Cahn served as a director of the American Civil Liberties Union. In 1962 he traded letters with David Ben-Gurion over freedom of the press. When he died in 1964, Justice Hugo Black opened the NYU Law Review memorial issue with a tribute.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis lithograph came out of serious collector’s estate in Chicago. It was likely create in the late 30s or early 40s, based on the style and Cain's New York years. It is titled lower left and signed \"Jo Cain\" under the inscription lower right. There is no edition number. Inscribed impressions like this were likely given to friends rather than sold. I have found no record of how the two men met. The pencil is the only witness.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe framed WPA artworks measures 20 1\/2” tall by 16 1\/2” wide.. The mat has toned to a warm tan with a darker line along the bevel. The sheet is evenly toned with a small ripple at the lower left edge and a pinpoint spot below the title. The gilt frame shows rubbing and small losses, with red bole exposed at the lower corners. On the back, blue painter's tape covers old paper tape on a cardboard backing, and the twisted wire holds. The image itself is strong and unfaded. Please see all pics as they are part of the description.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI ship FedEx to street addresses in the continental USA only (no PO Boxes). Free shipping on the dancers and their lawyer.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDid I mention that I love WPA art? Cold clocked every time. So good.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Mad Van Antiques","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67951204302925,"sku":null,"price":1000.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0116\/3637\/5610\/files\/IMG_1100.jpg?v=1794459601","url":"https:\/\/madvanantiques.com\/products\/wpa-era-lithograph-by-jo-cain-of-dancers-edmond-cahn-inscription","provider":"Mad Van Antiques","version":"1.0","type":"link"}