This is a demonstration of the ISM WPA image gallery
Good Earth
Olinka Hrdý (1902 - 1987)
lithograph on paper, circa 1938
11 3/4 x 16 1/2 inches
Olinka Hrdý was born in Prague, Oklahoma. From age seven, she lived on a farm rented from Native Americans. Native American design motifs were to play an important role in her design career.
Hrdý was sent to university with fifty dollars in her pocket. She was able to work her way through college by painting murals on the campus. During two summers, she worked at Taliesin East with Frank Lloyd Wright. She moved to New York, where she began her design career at a textile company designing fabrics. When the Depression hit, she moved to Los Angeles, where, in the WPA program, she again painted murals and made prints and exhibit backgrounds at Exposition Park. Later she became a free-lance designer.
Good Earth was exhibited at the Los Angeles County Museum in 1939 and appeared in several magazines. It depicts the landscape of Woodland Hills before development.
Collection of the Illinois State Museum
photograph by Gary andrashko
ISM Accession #: 1983.61.169
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