One of the finest depictions of an American worker from the 1930s that we have seen, this painting of a shirtless bricklayer, resting against a curved brick niche, with a half-built brick wall to one side, is a classic example of American social realism. The man's ruddy skin and tousled blond hair suggest that he has been at work in the sun for some time; his political sympathies are discreetly indicated, too: a small volume to his side with the Hammer and sickle on its cover. The slice of landscape to the left is itself a classic example of 1930s painting, and the colors throughout are rich and vivid. The painter, Paul Ulen, was trained in England, in the 1920s, later returning to Ohio to win several prizes at the Cleveland Museum of Art in the 1920s and 1930s.