The Working Press

Pele de Lappe

Phyllis "Pele" deLappe, who worked on and off as an artist/editor for Peoples World from 1943 into the 197s, did this lithograph in 1968, during the Viet Nam War. She depicts a politician at a podium, fist clenched, urging people to VOTE.

The composition refers back to her deftly drawn social commentary lithographs from the 1930s. She only printed five impressions of this print. The image extended to the ragged edge of the chipped litho stone. This impression is illustrated on page 34 in her autobiography "A passionate journey through Art & the Red press."

In the foreground are four newsmen "The Working Press" who are reporting the event firsthand. One sits hunched over a typewriter as another awaits his typed pages as they are finished. Two other reporters appear to be exhausted, having a cigarette break.

Pele was paying a tribute to the working press, the reporters who are in the trenches, so essential during the political process. A working press is something we, as a nation, have always depended on, despite current efforts to diminish and demonize it.