View in a room

Mike Fink

William Gropper

Framed size: 20.5 in. (h) x 15 in. (w) x 1.5 in. (d)

$600.00

Taxes and shipping fees will apply upon checkout

Figurative, Framed, Gropper, Intaglio Print, Lithograph, Post-War Twentieth Century, Prints & Multiples, Social Commentary and History

About the work

Miche Phinck—Mike Fink—was a semi-legendary brawler and river boatman of the late 18th and early 19th centuries who exemplified the tough and hard-drinking men who ran keelboats up and down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. William Gropper portrayed Fink in his American Folk Heroes Portfolio as a huge, tough, confident, and raw workingman. Fink’s toughness made him, in earlier days in our nation, an exemplar of an American man, though by the late 19th century he came to be seen as a boor and a bully. Interestingly, in the early 20th century Henry Shoemaker, a Pennsylvania folklorist, tried to revive Fink’s reputation, and while Shoemaker’s efforts had little success Gropper nevertheless chose Fink as one of his models of American Folk Heroes.

This work is now quite scarce.

Attributes	Value
Type	Modern Print-Makers
Condition	Very Good Condition
Date	1950-1960
Framing	Custom framed and matted using conservation materials
Medium	Lithograph
Signing, Dating, and Titling	Signed in the plate