Irving Norman (1908-1989) was a passionate artist who worked, in his own words, to "tell the truth in our time." Norman's ambitious, large canvases were painted to unmask the realities of human nature and critique the contemporary society in which we live. The atrocities Norman witnessed in volunteer service during the Spanish Civil War jolted his consciousness, and he began to express his experiences through drawing and then painting from the 1940s to the 1980s. With the belief that his paintings could act as agents of social reform, Norman felt that pointing out the inequities, horrors and foibles of human behavior might somehow cause people to reconsider their actions.