Kevin B. O'Callahan (1902-1977)

In 1936, [Kevin] O’Callahan turned for the first and only time to social commentary. He produced a woodcut picturing the new City Hall in Buffalo not from the imposing front, but seen from the back, rising in Deco glory above decaying wooden houses of the urban poor. He titled this print “Pride and Prejudice.” It is an implicit criticism of Buffalo’s city fathers who had spent vast sums on a new government seat which was surrounded by evidence of America’s economic disaster. There are no further examples of social consciousness in O’Callahan’s work. (Albert Michaels, “Kevin B. O’Callahan, Master Printer,” Kevin B. O’Callahan and The Buffalo Print Club. (Buffalo: Burchfield Art Center, 1988): 91.