I Am an American

A Black man in an all-black suit, paired with a top hat just off center in the foreground of the image, pushes a loaded cart down what seems to be an alley. The cart sports two miniature American flags at the end, and the three-wheeled wagon’s path points perpendicular to the road and directly toward the audience, suggesting an unstable control over the man’s own belongings. There are too many obstacles--even the piece’s heavily imbued texture works to visually chip away at the man’s effort--but despite the difficulties, the title suggests this stubborn man persists, perhaps commenting on the “true American” qualities of the working class. He pays no mind to the only other person in the image, a crouched homeless woman who sits outside a small domicile, just behind the American. Perhaps Steth is paradoxically noting the “rugged individualism” mentality that comes with perceived American success. From his shaggy, worn coat, to his asymmetrical top hat, down to his patriotic display, he remains diligent about appearances. He wheels his cart down the uneven, textured path of the road, heaving his body forward in an asymmetrical tilt to gain leverage. The contrast in the man’s suit and his environment centers him and further brings to light his futile action. Neither suit nor patriotic homages will grant him a place in the eyes of America’s racial majority.

About the Artist

Raymond Steth was an African American graphic artist born into a working-class farming family in Norfolk, Virginia before moving to Pennsylvania. He spent much of his childhood in North Carolina, where he worked on the farm his uncle sharecropped. In 1938, he began working for the graphics division of the Federal Art Project, where he shared a studio with colleague Claude Clark, one of several artists Steth worked and exhibited alongside of. This allowed him the experience to work as a professional artist; he later furthered his education by attending the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art in 1941 and the Barnes Foundation in 1942.

While working for the W.P.A., Steth made social realist prints and drawings depicting labor, poverty, and culture all intersecting with the Black experience in America. As in his lithograph I Am an American, he can be seen both sympathetically and ironically depicting the abundant life and struggles of African American communities. Apostolic, another lithograph, illustrates a lively room of black people rejoicing and praying, depicting, or even mocking, the importance of faith in African American identity, while highlighting communal uplifting and joy. Heaven on a Mule is a scene of an impoverished family’s encounter with angels, commenting on how although religion may offer this family solace, it alone cannot change their circumstances. Fittingly, he was raised under the Pentecostal faith, being told by his mother and especially his aunt--who was an active participant and official at their church--that he could someday become great if he did as they told, went to church, and prayed. His works were exhibited at the Library of Congress in 1940, the South Side Community Art Center in Chicago in 1941, and Fort Huachuca in Arizona in 1943. Some of Steth’s prints were given to the Philadelphia Free Public Library in 1941, recognizing his usage of the carborundum print process invented by fellow Black artist, Dox Thrash, that allowed for wider range and texture of tones in black and white, and thus depiction of varying black skin. Steth was the first to use the double print method for making color prints on a burnished plate. Steth also founded and directed the Philographic School of Art in 1948. Whether Steth remained religious in his later years as his family members advised, he certainly became an influential American artist in his time. 14 works at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 14 works at the Newark Museum of Art. 8 at Philadelphia Museum of Art. 6 at Saint Louis Art Museum. 2 works at the National Gallery of Art.

Works Consulted: “Art Exhibit Comes to Philly,” The Villanovan (16 Feb 1990: 21) Link; “New Carborundum Print Process,” New York Age 1940 (Tuskegee Institute News Clippings) Link; Jerry Wood, “A New Print Process” (The Crisis Dec. 1940: 379+) Link; Synatra Smith, “Raymond Steth” (Philadelphia Museum of Art 14 April 2022) Link; Marge Kline, “Clip of Oral History Interview With Raymond Steth” (Archives of American Art 28 April 1990) Link; Lowery Stokes Sims, “Artists for Victory and the WPA at the Met: Catalytic Acquisitions of Work by African American Artists in the Early 1940s (115-121 in Denise Murrell, The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism, 2024) Link.