Christmas Trees

Several people gather Christmas trees in a snowy, urban setting. The foreground includes two men, a woman and a baby, a young child, and (incongruously) a cat all gathered around a pile of Christmas trees. In the background we see a butcher at work, with a woman and a child looking into the store’s window. Dwight’s use of tonal value helps the viewer differentiate Christmas trees in the foreground from those in the background, and the surrounding buildings. Her handling of form helps create a three-dimensional space that gives the trees and background contents shape: they’re desirable even to us. The scene is composed asymmetrically, with more negative space to the right and positive space to the left, filled with people and Christmas trees. The lack of an obvious focal point allows the viewer to understand a subtle disorder to the scene, encapsulated by citizens dragging large trees with children and pets running through the area. Dwight’s work provides a commentary on the natural world’s bounty being hauled into an industrialized urban setting—a seemingly prosperous one, at that. Outside of the frame, or perhaps hinted at via a shadowy figure at right, are Americans unable to afford the material accoutrements of Christmas. 

About the Artist

Born Mabel Jacque Williamson in Cincinnati, OH, Dwight was one of the more controversial and prolific lithographers of her time. She studied painting at the Hopkins School of Art in San Francisco, CA in her twenties, travelling to Paris, Egypt, India, and other destinations after her studies. She married Eugene Higgins in 1906 before divorcing in 1921, when she changed her last name to Dwight (for reasons unknown). Even before making art full time, she had become a champion of socialist art and ideals, inspired by her time in college. “I was born with a hatred for the duality of poverty and riches,” she recalled. In 1926, at the age of fifty, Dwight began making her first lithographs and by 1928 her work was displayed at the Weyhe Gallery in New York City. Dwight’s main subjects were the ordinary residents of New York City, depicting their lives during 1920s opulence and then the Great Depression. Dwight’s lithographs offered an unflinching, documentary view that was suffused with social commentary. As she later explained, “There are always artists who cannot be satisfied with the credo of art for art’s sake. They must tell stories, express opinions, and ‘take sides’” (“Satire in Art” 151). Dwight observed, however, that the great satirists like William Hogarth rarely made use of “arbitrary distortion,” and her lithographs usually had realistic and inclusive features—such as rounded forms and subtle lighting—that create unity among its subjects. Dwight brought complex social issues to an accessible medium with subtlety and artistic integrity. Dwight was employed by the Federal Art Project (1935-1939) and was a member of the American Artists’ Congress, which championed socialist policies and promoted artists’ rights. By the end of her career in 1941, she had created more than a hundred lithographs collected at a variety of museums and universities. 27 works at Whitney Museum of American Art. 19 works at Metropolitan Museum of Art. 20 works at Smithsonian American Art Museum. 23 works at Amon Carter Museum. 20 works at National Gallery of Art. 10 images at FAP.

Works Consulted:Mabel Dwight, “Satire in Art," in Art for the Millions: Essays from the 1930s by Artists and Administrators of the WPA Federal Art Project, ed. Francis V. O'Connor (1973) Link; David Herman. “Mabel Dwight: Art as a Living Influence on the World,” Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (2026) Link; Library of Congress, Life of the People: Realist Prints and Drawings from the Ben and Beatrice Goldstein collection, 1912-1948 (1999) Link