Vegetable Market

Wisconsin born artist Dorothea Lau was active in the 1930s and early 1940s as a painter and printmaker. She studied at the Minneapolis School of Art from 1936 to 1938 and exhibited paintings at the Minneapolis Institute of Art on a number of occasions in these years. She was selected to participate in the WPA [Works Progress Project] / Federal Art Project, Minnesota. The artists were charged with capturing a portrait of life in America, and thousands of paintings, watercolors, and prints were produced. While Lau often brought to light the difficult plight of rural America and the urban poor—joblessness, hard labor, flooding—Vegetable Market is uncharacteristically cheerful. The brightly colored print represents a bountiful fruit and vegetable market, with customers carefully selecting their purchases.