美国国家公共电台 NPR From Sandwich Shops To Cotton Mills, Art That Honors The American Worker

 

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Hard work is going on at a Washington, D.C., museum. A man tightens¹ a bolt with a wrench². A farm worker fills his sack with cotton. Rosie the Riveter³ rolls up her sleeve for a factory job. To be precise, these are depictions of hard work at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. NPR special correspondent Susan Stamberg reports on the exhibition called "The Sweat Of Their Face."

SUSAN STAMBERG, BYLINE⁴: A forlorn young girl - she can't be more than 11 or 12 - stands at a long row of spools⁵ of thread mounted on a big piece of complicated machinery⁶. Photographer Lewis Hine wrote her name and height on the back of the picture - Sadie Pfeiffer, 48 inches. So small. She had a summer job in 1908 at the Lancaster Cotton Mills in South Carolina. You can almost hear the noise, feel the heat.

DOROTHY MOSS⁷: And there she is, this little girl alone facing an enormous machine.

STAMBERG: Dorothy Moss curated this show. Lewis Hine was a crusader. His cause was to abolish child labor⁸.

MOSS: He would often disguise himself as a Bible vendor⁹ or a newspaper deliverer - other professions to get into these mills.

STAMBERG: Hines put himself at risk to take these pictures. With the camera as witness, reforms and regulations were enacted¹⁰. The Portrait Gallery exhibition is witness to centuries of American workers.

MOSS: The people who were building this country, who may be on the sidelines, who are not always the focus of our attention - but because artists often identify as workers, artists felt strongly to bring these people's stories out and to honor them.

STAMBERG: In this century, LA painter Ramiro Gomez honors the work of his parents.

RAMIRO GOMEZ: My mother is a janitor¹¹.

STAMBERG: And your father - what does he do?

GOMEZ: My father is a truck driver.

STAMBERG: Gomez adds workers like these onto copies of iconic American paintings like David Hockney's image "Man In Shower In Beverly Hills." Gomez deletes the man.

MOSS: And he's inserted the cleaning woman.

STAMBERG: We can't see her face, just her hands squeegeeing the shower tiles.

Gomez is making the invisible visible. He and others in the show take workers we never notice and make us notice. A food worker in a Subway sandwich store gets the full treatment from photographer Shauna Frischkorn. She puts him - he's a kid named Kean - against a black background and lights his face to look sculptural. The black and green Subway cap sits on his red hair like a crown, like a Renaissance¹² portrait but with a little smile - a twinkle.

MOSS: She's restoring his humanity through the pose and lighting¹³.

STAMBERG: While the workers aren't known, some of the artists who portray¹⁴ them are famous - photographers Dorothea Lange, Gordon Parks, Ansel Adams; painters Winslow Homer, George Bellows¹⁵. And some are less familiar. John Neagle was fashionable in his day. But now his 1829 portrait of Pat Lyon is a marvel¹⁶ - big, beefy guy in a leather apron¹⁷, a blacksmith at his anvil¹⁸.

MOSS: You can see the muscles straining in his right arm.

STAMBERG: Pat Lyon was falsely accused of theft, jailed for three years, then became a wealthy businessman. Yet the painter shows him sweating at his anvil, at Lyon's request.

MOSS: He said he wanted to be shown as a working man because the working people of this country are the most honest people of the country.

STAMBERG: When I asked curator Dorothy Moss for the image of someone lucky enough to be taking pleasure in his work, she led me to Dawoud Bey's 1976 photo of "Mr. Moore's Bar-B-Que, 125th Street." The owner is beaming at us from behind his Harlem lunch counter. He's looked up from talking with a customer waiting for her food. She's smoking, and she better flick¹⁹ off the long cigarette ash pretty soon. Mr. Moore's apron is stained - probably barbecue sauce - and he looks so welcoming and proud. Well, you want to go sit at that counter and talk to him.

MOSS: You really do, I know. It looks like a wonderful place to spend an afternoon.

STAMBERG: Workers of the world - well, America anyway - unite at this Portrait Gallery exhibition. "The Sweat Of Their Face" reminds visitors of the range of vital work we do and the ways we feel about it.

I'm Susan Stamberg, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF JOSE GONZALEZ'S "WHAT WILL (WITH THE BRITE LITES)")

1 tightens   

收紧( tighten的第三人称单数 )； （使）变紧； （使）绷紧； 加紧

参考例句：

• One set of provisions tightens emission standards. 一套使排放标准更加严格的规定。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法
• Requires no special tools or fittings; hand tightens to relief valve outlet. 不需要专用工具或管件；用手将其紧固到安全阀上即可。

2 wrench   

v.猛拧；挣脱；使扭伤；n.扳手；痛苦，难受

参考例句：

• He gave a wrench to his ankle when he jumped down.他跳下去的时候扭伤了足踝。
• It was a wrench to leave the old home.离开这个老家非常痛苦。

3 riveter   

打铆机； 铆枪； 铆工

参考例句：

• The riveter riveted the metal sheets to the ship's bottom. 铆工把薄金属板铆在船底上。
• The experiment proved that the recoil force of the electromagnetic riveter has reduced greatly. 通过试验表明，优化后铆枪的后坐力明显减小。

4 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

5 spools   

n.（绕线、铁线、照相软片等的）管( spool的名词复数 )；络纱；纺纱机；绕圈轴工人v.把…绕到线轴上（或从线轴上绕下来）( spool的第三人称单数 )；假脱机（输出或输入）

参考例句：

• I bought three spools of thread at the store. 我在这个店里买了三轴线。 来自辞典例句
• How many spools of thread did you use? 你用了几轴线？ 来自辞典例句

6 machinery   

n.(总称)机械，机器；机构

参考例句：

• Has the machinery been put up ready for the broadcast?广播器材安装完毕了吗？
• Machinery ought to be well maintained all the time.机器应该随时注意维护。

7 moss   

n.苔，藓，地衣

参考例句：

• Moss grows on a rock.苔藓生在石头上。
• He was found asleep on a pillow of leaves and moss.有人看见他枕着树叶和苔藓睡着了。

8 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

9 vendor   

n.卖主；小贩

参考例句：

• She looked at the vendor who cheated her the other day with distaste.她厌恶地望着那个前几天曾经欺骗过她的小贩。
• He must inform the vendor immediately.他必须立即通知卖方。

10 enacted   

制定（法律），通过（法案）( enact的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• legislation enacted by parliament 由议会通过的法律
• Outside in the little lobby another scene was begin enacted. 外面的小休息室里又是另一番景象。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

11 janitor   

n.看门人，管门人

参考例句：

• The janitor wiped on the windows with his rags.看门人用褴褛的衣服擦着窗户。
• The janitor swept the floors and locked up the building every night.那个看门人每天晚上负责打扫大楼的地板和锁门。

12 renaissance   

n.复活，复兴，文艺复兴

参考例句：

• The Renaissance was an epoch of unparalleled cultural achievement.文艺复兴是一个文化上取得空前成就的时代。
• The theme of the conference is renaissance Europe.大会的主题是文艺复兴时期的欧洲。

13 lighting   

n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光

参考例句：

• The gas lamp gradually lost ground to electric lighting.煤气灯逐渐为电灯所代替。
• The lighting in that restaurant is soft and romantic.那个餐馆照明柔和而且浪漫。

14 portray   

v.描写，描述；画(人物、景象等)

参考例句：

• It is difficult to portray feelings in words.感情很难用言语来描写。
• Can you portray the best and worst aspects of this job?您能描述一下这份工作最好与最坏的方面吗？

15 bellows   

n.风箱；发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的名词复数 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫v.发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的第三人称单数 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫

参考例句：

• His job is to blow the bellows for the blacksmith. 他的工作是给铁匠拉风箱。 来自辞典例句
• You could, I suppose, compare me to a blacksmith's bellows. 我想，你可能把我比作铁匠的风箱。 来自辞典例句

16 marvel   

vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事

参考例句：

• The robot is a marvel of modern engineering.机器人是现代工程技术的奇迹。
• The operation was a marvel of medical skill.这次手术是医术上的一个奇迹。

17 apron   

n.围裙；工作裙

参考例句：

• We were waited on by a pretty girl in a pink apron.招待我们的是一位穿粉红色围裙的漂亮姑娘。
• She stitched a pocket on the new apron.她在新围裙上缝上一只口袋。

18 anvil   

n.铁钻

参考例句：

• The blacksmith shaped a horseshoe on his anvil.铁匠在他的铁砧上打出一个马蹄形。
• The anvil onto which the staples are pressed was not assemble correctly.订书机上的铁砧安装错位。

19 flick   

n.快速的轻打，轻打声，弹开；v.轻弹，轻轻拂去，忽然摇动

参考例句：

• He gave a flick of the whip.他轻抽一下鞭子。
• By a flick of his whip,he drove the fly from the horse's head.他用鞭子轻抽了一下，将马头上的苍蝇驱走。