Orcastra at War

Louis Monza, Orcastra at War, 1943, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill, Jr. and museum purchase made possible by Ralph Cross Johnson, 1986.65.131
Copied Louis Monza, Orcastra at War, 1943, oil on canvas, 26 x 32 in. (65.9 x 81.2 cm.), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill, Jr. and museum purchase made possible by Ralph Cross Johnson, 1986.65.131

Artwork Details

Title
Orcastra at War
Artist
Date
1943
Location
Dimensions
26 x 32 in. (65.9 x 81.2 cm.)
Credit Line
Gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill, Jr. and museum purchase made possible by Ralph Cross Johnson
Mediums
Mediums Description
oil on canvas
Classifications
Subjects
  • Figure group
  • Allegory — other — Molotov, V. M.
  • Portrait male — Roosevelt, Franklin Delano
  • Performing arts — music — orchestra
  • Allegory — civic — war
Object Number
1986.65.131
Linked Open Data
https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/1986.65.131

Artwork Description

Louis Monza was a passionate pacifist and socialist whose dramatic paintings highlighted the brutality of war. This image shows a grim group of figures huddled together against a backdrop of war-torn buildings. The piano player represents Franklin D. Roosevelt, while the drummer is Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov, a key figure in the Bolshevik Revolution and Soviet commissar of foreign affairs in the 1940s (Josephine Gibbs, "Louis Monza, Primitive," Art Digest 18, November 1943, and Lynda Hartigan, Made with Passion, 1990). Monza's painting illustrates the uneasy alliance that brought the Second World War to an end and hints at the events that soon put these players at odds with one another.