Laborers

Margaret Law left her mark on her native Spartanburg as an educator and co-founder of the Arts and Crafts Club (later the Spartanburg Museum of Art). She got a diploma from Converse College and furthered her art training in New York and Paris.

Law took to heart the advice of one of her instructors: seek inspiration from everyday life. She explained, “I put down what I see, wherever I am, and the result is a record of life in a small Southern town.” In Laborers she created a rhythmic and vivid, if unsentimental, depiction of a scene that was commonplace in her day. The soft curvature of the men’s backs is contrasted with their pickaxes and balanced by the sweeping curve of the road they are building.