The exhibition Coal & Steel, Sources & Uses, is on view at the Susan Teller Gallery from July 17 through August 29, 2012.  

Paintings and works on paper from 1932 to 1952 by Ida Abelman, Rita Albers, Will Barnet, Fred Becker, Bernarda Bryson Shahn, James Daugherty, Michael J. Gallagher, Hugo Gellert, Blanche Grambs, Peter Grippe, Riva Helfond, Axel Horn, Mervin Jules, Charles Keller, Dorothy Browdy Kushner, Hugh Mesibov, Angelo Pinto, Albert Potter, Georges Schreiber, Ben Shahn, Fred Shane, Mitchell Siporin, William E. Smith, Harry Sternberg, Lynd Ward, are in the exhibition.

               Coal mining and steel production, foundations of American industry, were strong inspirations for artists of the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. While coal fed the furnaces of factories, homes, and steam engines, steel was used to build the factories themselves, the infrastructure of railroads, bridges, canals and skyscrapers. As the country entered World War II, steel was used to built the great ships and the machines of war, and then returned to re-build the American Dream.