Associated American Artists - Populist Appeal

Populist Appeal

Lewenthal marketed his prints as educational resources, as a patriotic choice, and as "art for the people" rather than "art for the wealthy." He also began marketing direct to the public via mail-order in magazines such as Time magazine and Reader's Digest, and by phrasing it in terms of upward mobility—in the same way as buying Listerine ("The Dentifrice of the Rich," according to one ad campaign), owning modern art raised one's life socially. (Somewhat counter-intuitively, AAA's success led them to open a gallery on New York's posh Fifth Avenue in the late 1930s.) In 1944, AAA had 107 artists under contract and sold 62,374 lithographs, for a net income of $1 million per month; they also began to expand into slightly higher-end (but still affordable) paintings.

In addition to its mainstream marketing strategy, AAA chose art and artists with populist appeal. Representational and regional art made up the bulk of their lines; particularly popular were the works of Benton, Curry and Wood. These artists avoided gritty realism and created positive images of an idealized, strong, capable America, a viewpoint which accorded well with the political environment of the New Deal and was in some senses therapeutic for the anxiety and weakness pervasive during and just after the Depression. Typical of this was Hart Benton's Plowing It Under, released shortly after the federal government arranged the plowing under of millions of acres previously devoted to cotton production in order to increase farm revenue; Benton's work reassured the public that the government was working in the best interests of the people.