| (Recognizing the need for a magazine that would continue the nonsectarian legacy of the Liberator, the former editors of the Liberator and the Masses founded New Masses in 1926. Like its predecessors, this monthly publication was aimed at liberals sympathetic to the plight of workers.(21) From May 1926 to June 1928, New Masses (May 1926-January 12, 1948) attempted to combine its desire to create an artistic renaissance in America with its sympathy for workers, a union that was reflected in an editorial board that was nearly divided between former editors of the Liberator and the Masses and writers committed to the revival of American letters. In the prospectus of the proposed magazine, which was initially to be titled Dynamo, the organizers set forth its many objectives: The publication will represent no special school of literature or art, and will welcome the expressions of all schools. . . . It will regularly interpret the activities of workers, farmers, strikers, etc., but in such a way as to bring out the general human and cultural significance of particular movements. For it believes that a deeply human interpretation of any event is better than propaganda. . . . It must strike its roots strongly into American reality. It must not be afraid of slang, moving picture sic~, radio, vaudeville, strikes, machinery or any other raw American facts. Its job will be to assimilate these facts of life into art and satire. It must maintain the highest standard of art and literature of which its editors are capable, but it must also be sympathetic to any crudeness which is the expression of something young, vital and as yet groping and undeveloped. . . . At least half of the pages will consist of pictures. These will be cartoons of our current political and social events, drawings of American life and also, though not ever predominantly, pictures that have no journalistic value but are based on the emotion of art.(22) Gold, one of the six original editors, denied that I, or anyone else, demands of young American writers that they take their 'spiritual' commands from Moscow and stated that it was not a magazine of Communism or Moscow, but a magazine of American experiment. He characterized New Masses as the bridge to the discovery of the world of revolutionary labor. (23) Initially, the illustrations were selected by the entire executive board, although Gellert, an ardent supporter of Russia, and John Sloan, a liberal sympathetic to workers, served as art editors.(24) During the first two years, pictorial images in New Masses reflected its diverse goals. The magazine's proletarian orientation was set forth in Gellert's design for the cover of its first issue of May 1926; it showed the head of a miner printed in black, white, and red. Images of dishwashers, linemen, miners, construction workers, and pneumatic-drill workers--the last two quintessential images of American workers--appeared frequently in drawings by David Burliuk, Gan Kolski, Lozowick, Jan Matulka, Morris Pass, Ribak, Robinson, and William Siegel. These images depicted workers actively engaged with machines, as in J. Pleush's cover design for the October 1927 issue. Social criticism was generally confined to satirical captions accompanying drawings and cartoons, such as the caption to Gropper's drawing of a group of socialite women hearing a report of their charitable works: Ladies, it gives me great pleasure to announce that we have saved 5,000 starving children in the past year. And we hope there will be more next year (July 1926: 14). Similarly, I sidore~ Klein titled a drawing of an assembly line in a boiler factory Ballet Mecanique and added the caption, This Antheil is a genius. Since introducing his theory of orchestration into the boiler factory, our profits have almost doubled (May 1927: 24). Abstract and semiabstract compositions appeared regularly on the covers or as illustrations: cubistic cityscapes by Lozowick ..RARE last Number But The Most cubistic...) Revue d'art CUBISTE associant le travail ...En bon état malgré le petit défaut signalé (very good condition in spite of the small defect indicated). |
