Writing from a working-class perspective, Janet Zandy links labor and art to challenge the unnamed class biases in systems of art curation, categorization and expertise. Zandy orchestrates the voices of nine artists—Käthe Kollwitz and Elizabeth Catlett, Ruth Asawa and Marilyn Anderson, Milton Rogovin and Jens S. Jensen, Mark Rogovin and muralism, Ralph Fasanella, and Raymond Mason—whose work aligns with the histories and living conditions of working-class people. These paired portraits open larger conversations about class and artistic formation, intent, and accessibility. Zandy presents a model for writing about art in an inclusive, theoretically informed, and creatively constructed way. Art, as Zandy shows, is not a rare fruit to be plucked by the chosen few. Art is a human necessity and crucial for the sustenance of democracy.

Ambitious and original, Working-Class Girls Don’t Become Artists rewrites art history from a working-class perspective.

Janet Zandy is a visual artist and professor emerita of English at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Her books include Unfinished Stories: The Narrative Photography of Hansel Mieth and Marion Palfi and Hands: Physical Labor, Class, and Cultural Work.