Nesin, George (1889-1962)

Born in Krasilov, Russia (modern-day Ukraine), Nesin immigrated to the US in 1902 and received citizenship in 1911. He seems to have been trained as an engraver, although for a period during the 1930s worked as a farmer in Massachusetts with his brother Morris. He exhibited at the Federal Art Project Gallery (1936). Nesin’s painting “Sawing Wood for Winter” appears in a heartbreaking 1944 Life magazine story on the decision by Colonel Brehon Somervell, the New York WPA administrator, to sell off completed canvases by the pound to a junk dealer. Throughout all these years—and until the end of his life—Nesin was a passionate debater of political issues. As a member of the Socialist Party, he advocated for old age pensions and against conscription during the Great War (he spent six months in jail for speaking on a street corner). Later, with the rise of fascism, he advocated for US vigilance and filled out a draft registration card at age 52. By the end of his life he had renounced socialism: “We walk with the code of Civilization: The Ten Commandments and the great Hebrew Prophets who were every bit Conservative” (New Guard April 1962: 19). 1 more image at FAP.

Works in the New Deal Collection at GVCA by George Nesin: