No Vacancies John Harvey

Linocut depicting working class struggle of the 1930s

No Vacancies

The 1930s Depression was a time of crushing social dislocation and despair and it is no coincidence that extreme conservative and radical politics flourished. No vacancies was one of a series of twenty-nine linocuts, entitled Saga. A protest in lino-cuts. The book was published by the Workers Art Club, a group associated with the Communist Party of Australia, to depict the struggle of the working classes to engineer socialism.

The Workers’ Weekly reported on the formation of the Club on 7 April 1933, exhorting it ‘to play a part in rallying wider masses to the struggle against capitalism’. On 23 June 1933, the paper called on the Club to develop ‘working class art along the lines of the class struggle motif’. Nothing is known of John Harvey, but this work about the despair of low wages and unemployment suggests he was very aware of German political art of the 1920s.
Display item No Vacancies John Harvey

 

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