Dance Marathon

An activist as well as an artist, Philip Evergood was committed to creating art that exposed social injustice. Dance Marathon depicts a phenomenon that swept the United States during the Great Depression, in which couples competed for a cash prize by dancing for as long as possible. In this complex and luridly colored painting, Evergood combines realistic details, such as the exhausted couples and crude prize announcements, with symbols, like the skeletal hand, that convey his attitude toward the dismal spectacle. Evergood’s work of social critique, while rooted in the Depression, is a powerful reminder of the timelessness of human desperation and cruelty.