Laura Slobe

Laura Slobe (sometimes credited as Laura Gray) (November 17, 1909 – January 11, 1958) was an American painter, sculptor and
cartoonist.

Slobe was born in Pittsburgh to a well-to-do Jewish family, and grew up in Chicago, enrolling in the School of the Art Institute of
Chicago at 16; by 19 she was exhibiting paintings and winning prizes. She began exhibiting sculpture as well by the late 1930s, and
came eventually to be known more as a sculptor than as a painter. In 1939 and 1940 she worked for the Works Progress
Administration, creating art and teaching in a number of states, including Oregon. She became acquainted at this point with George
Perle, whom she married in 1940; in 1942 the couple joined the Socialist Workers Party, and she took the pseudonym "Laura Gray".
She was soon tasked with assisting in the organization of automotive workers, and it was at this time that she began her cartooning
career. Encouraged to submit drawings to The Militant, her first appeared in the paper on March 4, 1944; she went on to become the
paper's staff artist, submitting at least one cartoon almost weekly for the rest of her life. These drawings, which have been compared
to the work of Boardman Robinson, Hugo Gellert, and Robert Minor, would be published in Trotskyist publications around the
world.[1] Some of her cartoons on the subject ofcivil rights would also be published in theAfrican-American press.[2]

Slobe and Perle moved to New York City after World War II, divorcing in 1952 but remaining close. She lived on and off for a time
with Duncan Ferguson, and supported herself with a number of odd jobs, devoting less and less of her time to her own art over the
years. Always fragile in health – she lived withtuberculosis from early in her life and in 1947 further suffered the removal of a lung –
[1] She died in New York City.[3] A sculpture prize was
she contracted pneumonia that rapidly turned fatal, killing her at the age of 49.
[4] and Perle composed aQuintet for Strings in her memory.[1]
established in her honor at the Art Institute of Chicago after her death,

Two sculptures by Slobe are in the collection of the Illinois State Museum; they are Vanity, a plaster of c. 1935,[4] and Venus, a
plaster of about the same date.[5] A collection of her cartoons for The Militant is owned by the Tamiment Library and Robert F.
Wagner Archives at New York University.[6]

References
1. "Guide to the Laura Gray Political Cartoons GRAPHICS.013"(http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/tamwag/graphics_0
13/bioghist.html). Retrieved 26 February 2017.
2. "The New York Comics & Picture Story Symposium Review: Ten Great Cartoonists You've Never Heard Of – Mark
Lerer" (http://www.marklerer.com/writing/the-new-york-comics-picture-story-symposium-review-t
en-great-cartoonists-
youve-never-heard-of/). Retrieved 26 February 2017.
3. "Laura Slobe – Illinois Women Artist" (http://iwa.bradley.edu/artists/LauraSlobe). Retrieved 26 February 2017.
4. "WPA Art Collection – Illinois State Museum"(http://www.museum.state.il.us/ismdepts/art/WPA/gallery.html?RollID=r
oll02&FrameID=Slobe_Vanity). Retrieved 26 February 2017.
5. "WPA Art Collection – Illinois State Museum"(http://www.museum.state.il.us/ismdepts/art/WPA/gallery.html?RollID=r
oll02&FrameID=Slobe_Venus). Retrieved 26 February 2017.
6. "Guide to the Laura Gray Political Cartoons GRAPHICS.013"(http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/tamwag/graphics_0
13/index.html). Retrieved 26 February 2017.

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