The Tie that Binds

Lamar G. Baker

This composition is a commentary on the sociopolitical realities of the cotton industry as seen through history: in the foreground, 1930s present-day businessmen happily examine the numbers on their tickertape, as, behind them, the ghosts of previous centuries' venture capitalists look on. A snaking line of workers imprisoned by a cotton rope struggles for freedom as the rope is pulled tighter by a missile-like shuttlecock. Around them, cotton plants sprout from dry ground.

Baker did not shrink from exploring difficult and often controversial ideas, using art as a platform to critique the hypocrisy of social norms and prejudices. While his work often falls into the Surrealist category, it was often less veiled, and more pointed, than many of his contemporaries.

During the Great Depression Baker created several lithographic series dealing with a range of sociopolitical issues, the most well-known of which was the Cotton Series, which examined not only with the inherent racism of the industry, but the back-door politics and anti-union sentiments that affected black, white, male and female workers alike.