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Robinson & Pirog 38. Lithograph on wove Rives BFK paper, full margins. Edition: 44; printed by George Miller. Signed and dated in pencil.
Harlem Rent Party is based on a scene from the play “Harlem: A Melodrama of Negro Life” by W.J. Rapp and Wallace Thurman, which opened at the Apollo Theatre in 1929. The play began and ended with a rent party–a raucous evening of music, dancing, and drinking held to raise money to pay rent to the landlord. The play examines problems faced by African Americans who migrated to New York from southern states to escape poverty and oppression only to find tensions and difficulties in big-city living. There is a portrait of Lincoln, “the great emancipator”, on the back wall. The swaying bodies in a crowded tenement apartment are cast in harsh light and shadow.
