Final answer:
Artists during the Great Depression used Social Realism to depict the struggles and hardships faced by people, through photography and painting, providing a visual record of the socioeconomic conditions of the era.
Step-by-step explanation:
How Artists Told the Story of the Great Depression
During the Great Depression, artists played a crucial role in capturing the era's struggles and hardships. The art movement known as Social Realism became a significant form of expression during the 1930s, portraying the various facets of economic hardship, social and racial injustice. Painters and photographers depicted the reality of the times, often presenting the working class in a heroic light and as victims of the larger socioeconomic failings.
Photographers like Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans, commissioned through New Deal programs, documented the dire social conditions, creating images that ranged from documentary to propagandistic in support of government relief efforts. These photographs have become invaluable as historical documents and as enduring works of art. In addition, some paintings of the era, particularly those from the American Scene painting, Social Realism, and Regionalism movements, included pointed political and social commentary that depicted the realities of American life during the period.
The artists of the Great Depression thus provided a lasting visual record of the time, helping to tell the story of the economic and social challenges faced by the population during one of the most trying periods in American history.