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Weston was preoccupied with realism in
his art in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Simultaneously
he was increasingly concerned about the political
situation in Europe. The prospect of global war
brought to his mind the devastation of wartime
famine in Persia, and in 1942 he quit painting
to go to Washington to lobby political heavyweights
for famine relief. Through his work running Food
for Freedom, a one-man organization that eventually
was able to speak for sixty million Americans through
labor, civic, and church groups, Weston became
an expert on food policies and the politics that
motivated them. Many credited him with securing
food for tens of millions of refugees after the
war.
Weston was
exhausted from the
high-pressure work
and somewhat at a loss
as to how to re-enter
his painting career
after a lapse of seven
years. Suddenly fueled
by idealism, he decided
to paint the construction
of the United Nations headquarters
in New York City, a
project that absorbed
him from 1949-52, a
time when hyper-realism
was fast going out
of fashion. <previous
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Study for building the United Nations,
No. 2.
Watercolor on paper, 1949-52
See
more paintings from this period
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