Miner Joe, 1942. Elizabeth Olds. Screenprint. Museum Accession, transferred from the Lending Library Collection.
Like many socially conscious artists of the period, Elizabeth Olds created images that celebrated ordinary laborers. Here, a miner is depicted from the chest up, with his head tilted slightly upward against a bare background. While the title of the print evokes a commoner or average person, Olds’s focused treatment of her subject imbues him with an air of valor.