Pocket Guide -> Media -> Tempra and oil on panel -> Herrin Massacre
Herrin Massacre
by Paul Cadmus · American, 1904 - 99
| Creation Date: | 1940 |
| Media & Support: | Tempra and oil on panel |
| Dimensions: | 35 ½ x 26 ¾ inches |
| Credit: | Gift of Thomas J. Lord and Robert E. White, Jr. in memory of Arthur and Marie Bell Lord and R. Emmett and Irene Foster White |
Paul Cadmus was one of sixteen artists commissioned by Life magazine to illustrate significant events in American history after 1915. Cadmus selected a tragedy from 1925 in the mining town of Herrin, Illinois, in which a dispute over a labor contract erupted in a bloody riot. In a climactic moment, twenty-six strikebreakers were slain by union members. Cadmus painted the scene in a town cemetery, making use of such Christian symbols as the blood splattered on the lamb tombstone. Life never published Cadmus’s picture, perhaps because the magazine did not wish to offend organized labor at a time when industry was concentrating on wartime production.
