Background

Frances Pohl was born April 6, 1952, in Kimberley, British Columbia, Canada. She is the daughter of Frank and Caterina Regina Pohl.

Education

Frances Pohl attended the University of British Columbia, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in 1977 and a Master of Arts in 1980. Also, she studied at the University of California in Los Angeles and earned a Doctor of Philosophy in 1985.

Career

Frances Pohl started to serve at Pomona College in 1985. She is also a member of the board of directors of the Social and Public Art Resource Center since 1997 and a member of the advisory board of the Jahrbuch der Guernica-Gesellschaft in Germany since 1999. Pohl is a Canadian living in the United States, close to the Mexican border. In her studies, she incorporates the works of artists in all three countries. Also, it includes works of different genres, such as paintings, furniture, sculpture, posters, needlework, and ceramics. Her works include two studies of artist Ben Shahn's pieces and the political messages of his labor. Two other books offer comprehensive studies of art in North America.

Shahn, a social realist artist, and photographer, is the subject of Pohl's first two works. The earlier one, Ben Shahn: New Deal Artist in a Cold War Climate, 1947-1954, narrows its topic to his labor of the anti-Communism years in the United States following World War II. Shahn was a man who believed that art should be socially relevant and politically active. His own Jewish ethnicity often marked him as a target during the McCarthy years, and his works were blacklisted from time to time. However, He discovered a political balance and found a supporter by the labor unions and big business. Pohl also points out how Shahn was able to create materials for the government, such as pro-war posters, as well as to produce works that depicted the deplorable working conditions that existed in the United States, particularly in the South.

Pohl's second book, Ben Shahn, is a collaboration of sorts, as Pohl works not only with Shahn's art and a historical perspective of his collective works but also with Shahn's own writings. With this book, Pohl outlines his history and demonstrates how his work changed over time. Shahn and his work have not been studied for many years. After the height of his career in the late fifties, most art historians ignored him. One of the most notable Shahn's works represents the famed trial of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. They were Italian anarchists, who, how many people believe, were falsely accused of murder. They were subsequently tried and sentenced to death. Shahn also worked with Mexican muralist Diego Rivera on the famous Rockefeller Centerpiece, Man at the Crossroads, which was ultimately torn down almost immediately after it was finished. It happened because it contained a depiction of Vladimir Lenin, then-leader of the Soviet Union.

In 2002 Pohl published a book, Framing America: A Social History of American Art. It is often referred to as the model for art-history textbooks. In this work, Pohl reaches further into history than previous surveys. She does this, for example, by pondering the influences of Native Americans on European explorers and their arts. She examined that the meaning of a work is a function not only of its content but also of where it was produced and displayed, the identity of the artist, and how it was affected by race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality. Pohl also covers objects that other art historians have neglected, such as articles usually defined as craft rather than art and utilitarian implements. She includes works by Japanese-American internment camp inmates who tell the stories of their imprisonment through their art. For instance, Pohl includes sketches made by survivors of the battle at Little Big Horn, art by spectators of the Haymarket riot, and diagrams of the construction of the Statue of Liberty. Also collected in the 560-page textbook is the art of everyday life of Native Americans, Hispanic Americans, and women, and other often underrepresented groups.

Achievements

• Frances Pohl is well known as a writer and educator. She is a professor at Pomona College for thirty-five years. Additionally, Pohl is a holder of several honors and awards such as the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada fellowship in 1980-1984, Los Angeles doctoral fellow from the University of California, Smithsonian Institution postdoctoral fellow in 1988-1989, and National Endowment for the Humanities summer fellow in 1992. She also received numerous research grants from Pomona College.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Ben Shahn

    (In this pathbreaking study, Frances Pohl traces the polit...)

    1989
  • In the Eye of the Storm

    (The author offers a broad definition of social commentary...)

    1995
  • Framing America

    (Unique in its inclusive treatment, Framing America embrac...)

    2002
  • Ben Shahn 1993

Views

Frances Pohl strongly believes that art cannot be studied in isolation. Art is affected by the culture that surrounds the artist. Art is also not static as it is always evolving with the times. She studies, teaches, and writes about art with an interdisciplinary approach. To fully appreciate a work of art, Pohl believes that one must understand first how that creative piece functions within the particular era and in the specific place that the artist completed it. Also, to appreciate how the meaning of it has changed over time. She points out that what a particular artist might have wanted to express with his or her art is often used by others to convey different meanings, especially in the political arena.

Membership

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  College Art Association , United States

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  National Women's Studies Association , United States

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  American Studies Association , United States

Connections

Father:

Frank Pohl

Mother:

Caterina Regina Pohl