Foreign Trade

Commissioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Section of Painting and Sculpture to provide sculptural ornamentation for the headquarters of the Federal Trade Commission, Carl Ludwig Schmitz chose to depict Foreign Trade, a subject suggested by the Section, who acknowledged that “the activities of the Federal Trade Commission…do not readily lend themselves to sculptural interpretation.” Schmitz’s relief depicts a white man offering a bag of money to an African man in exchange for an ivory tusk. To indicate that the transaction is taking place in a foreign land, a gourd protrudes from under the African man’s arm, suggestive of local produce. Although the subject has only a tenuous association with the function of the Federal Trade Commission, the work is a notable departure from the Beaux-Arts style symbolism and allegorical figures found in the sculptural decoration of the surrounding Federal Triangle buildings. The subject matter is immediately understandable and directly related with contemporary activities.

Carl Ludwig Schmitz was born in Metz, Germany (today part of France), and studied at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Munich before immigrating to America in 1923 and attending the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in New York City. His accolades include the gold medal from the 1937 International Exposition in Paris and the George D. Widener Memorial Medal.