The Worst Hard Time

The Worst Hard Time

by

Timothy Egan

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on The Worst Hard Time makes teaching easy.

Alexandre Hogue Character Analysis

An artist who had grown up on a relative’s ranch near Dalhart, Texas. Life magazine called him “the artist of the Dust Bowl.” His most famous painting was Drouth Survivors. It was “a portrait of an agrarian nightmare” influenced by the Surrealist movement, showing two dead cows face down in a sand drift, a leafless tree covered in dust, a tractor nearly covered by sand, and a fence carried away by the wind. John McCarty planned to buy the painting from an exposition in Dallas for fifty dollars and return it to Dalhart, where he and the Last Man Club would burn it. However, the organizers wanted at least two thousand dollars for the painting. The artwork was later purchased by the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume in Paris and destroyed in a fire.
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Alexandre Hogue Character Timeline in The Worst Hard Time

The timeline below shows where the character Alexandre Hogue appears in The Worst Hard Time. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 23: The Last Men
Environmental Devastation and the Dust Bowl Theme Icon
Alexander Hogue grew up near Dalhart. He left for art school but returned to paint the town.... (full context)