The Tailor (The Sorrowful Tailor)
ca. 1943
Mervin Jules
born Baltimore, MD, 1912; died Provincetown, MA,1994
Jules depicted the plight of the poor and of working men. In the 1930s, New York gallery owner Hudson Walker commented on Jules’ unusually dark view of society and of life, for a man still so young. The Tailor is a classic example of the artist’s expression of feeling for a laborer’s sacrifice, in this case a life spent in the confines of a tailor’s shop, when an old man thinks back on the joyful freedom of his youth. Characteristic of Jules, the painting is tempera on artists’ board, its colors are somber, and its sinewy forms are appropriate to the expression of a man’s weakness and resignation.
Tempera on composition board
Gift of Allan and Nenette Harvey
2011.21.1
Provenance: [A.C.A. Gallery, New York, 1943]; sold to donor, 1943
