Social Inequities In Artwork

During the time of World War Two, between the years of 1939 – 1945, Canadian artists used their little supply of art materials to create artwork that depicted and portrayed the harsh reality of countries gripped in the midst of battle. Artists like Paraskeva Clark, Austin Taylor, and Lawren P. Harris reveal opinions on society, important figures, politics, and social inequities through their pieces, which remain as records of WWII. Canadian painters who were apart of the Canadian War Records lived and worked with the armed forces, spending a lot of time close to the front lines. They were expected to produce accurate artwork of fighting men, machinery, and the landscape of war, wherever they were at the time. This was done by sketching in the

Clark was commissioned to paint the activities of the Woman’s Division of the Royal Canadian Air Force (WD), which was the first branch of the Canadian armed services to actively recruit women to replace male air force personnel so that they would be available for combat-related duties. In this piece, Clark recreated a scene where woman were maintaining and repairing parachutes for the air force. She expressed her difficult search for a dramatic subject matter, writing “After having some personal experience with life and activities of the Women’s Divisions in the R.C.A.F or Wrens (Women’s Royal Canadian Naval Service), i lost all hope to see ‘any drama’ there. But i found exciting enough the fact that in some activities, women performed the jobs, previously done by men and thus, released (perhaps) some men for fighting duties or for war industries” Paraskeva Clark believed that depicting the act of woman performing jobs usually done by men was important to show in her artwork, because of the controversy of whether women have the ability to complete those jobs. Although she believed it was an important subject matter, she also says that she sees no “drama” in it, being that the jobs that women were replacing for men were regular housework like cooking or simple work. “Being C.W.A.C (Canadian Women’s Army Corps) was the easiest thing to do , the most pleasant. Throwing off the eternal chores and drodgery, of women’s life- woman entered a regulated orderly life, with one duty set upon each for so many hours each day, with the glory and glamour of uniform to top it! The jobs- mostly clerical , or as servants, cooks. All that is important, but where is the drama?” Paraskeva Clark’s work is often political as she believed that “an artist must act as a witness to class struggle and other societal issues”. ‘Parachute Riggers’ stays as a reminder