The Wind is Rising By Hyman Segal 1914-2004

Title- The Wind is Rising

Artist - Hyman Segal 1914 - 2004

Oil on Board

Size 60 x 55cm

£500

This painting is an early example of Segal’s work with impeccable providence. Please see images of gallery labels to verso, housed in its original frame. 

Hyman Segal was primarily inspired by the 1930s growing up. The period of the 1930s is epitomised by the conflict between many political ideologies, including Marxist Socialism, Capitalist Democracy, and the Totalitarianism of both Communism and Fascism. In the Soviet Union, Stalin’s government needed urgent funds to implement the rapid industrialisation demanded by the first Five Year Plan. It initiated a secret proposal to sell off treasures from the State Hermitage Museum in Leningrad (St. Petersburg), including a preliminary list of two hundred and fifty irreplaceable paintings by the Old Masters, many which found their way to the collection of Andrew Mellon via the New York based art dealing company, Knoedler. Artistic output in the United States was heavily impacted at the time by the Great Depression, and a number of artists took to focusing on ideas of humility and the ordinary man. For the first time in US history, artists began to delve into political subjects and attempted to use their art to impact society. Themes such as poverty, lack of affordable housing, anti-lynching, anti-fascism, and workers' strikes were prevalent in many artists’ work. Surrealism continued to dominate in Europe, and had influence internationally. Artists such as Frida Kahlo and Diego Riviera in Mexico, worked to integrate the ideas posed by Surrealism into their revolutionary political philosophies, developing a new kind of magic realism. The decade took a threatening turn with the dawn of National Socialism in Germany, followed by Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in 1933. By the end of the decade, the Second World War had begun; which preoccupied both artists and the global population.