Maynard Dixon (1875-1946), Keep Moving, 1934, oil on canvas, 30 1/4 x 40 1/8 inches. Brigham Young University Museum of Art, 1937.
The BYU Museum of Art has a beautiful collection of artwork by American painter Maynard Dixon. After witnessing a violent contest between labor strikers and police in San Francisco, Maynard Dixon created a series of strike paintings, highlighting the difficult reality of industrial workers during the Great Depression. In Keep Moving, the strikers’ shadowy forms—representing hard-working, oppressed laborers throughout the country—exude strength and resolution in asserting their rights. Several of the men cast their gaze toward the threatening clusters of policemen across the street.