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Jack Delano's life as a socially committed artist began in the late 1930s and continues just as powerfully today, despite the artist’s death in August 1997. In 1940, shortly after completing art school, Delano was hired by the New Deal's Farm Security Administration to travel the Atlantic seaboard photographing the Depression’s devastating effects, as well as the impact of wartime mobilization.

In 1941, Delano made one working trip to Puerto Rico, an experience that impressed him deeply. The poverty, he later recalled, was far worse than in other regions he had visited, but he was struck by "the dignity, indomitable spirit, and unquenchable sense of humor of the people in the face of the most appalling adversity." After three months of intensive photography, he was reluctant to leave. Following wartime service as a military photographer, he returned to Puerto Rico and made the island his home, becoming a constant participant in the cultural life of Puerto Rico.

Jack Delano’s career was brilliantly multifaceted. He has been recognized as one of the great contributors to the Farm Security Administration collection of New Deal social documents. He is also known as a chronicler of change in postwar Puerto Rico, as a filmmaker, as a composer, and as an illustrator of children's books designed in collaboration with his wife, Irene.

The Art of Jack Delano represents the first major efforts to bring together the extraordinary range of Delano's artistic endeavors. For all their diversity, Delano's works consistently manifest his passionate commitment to popular culture and communication.

The exhibition is built around a substantial review of the eloquent portraits and carefully-composed interiors and landscapes that Delano contributed to the Farm Security Administration. By considering these New Deal documents along with the photographs, films, and graphics Delano made in Puerto Rico over the last fifty years, the exhibition traces a profoundly moral vision that is tempered by a compassionate, humorous sense of what it means to be human.

The Art of Jack Delano has been organized with the generous support of Banco Popular de Puerto Rico. An extensive Education Resource Guide accompanies the exhibition. Jack Delano’s autobiography, Photographic Memories is available from the Smithsonian Institution Press.