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Derkovits' artistic attitude meant judgement over social injustice, he wanted to depict the sufferings of proletarians. "Both as a painter and a man of our age, I have the feeling that I am obliged to express phenomena of our lives and society," he said. His life and art were inseparable from the exploited working class of his age. His pictures were almost without exception critical. The severity of the social message was accompanied by transparently pure colours. "The Rich Undertaker" is one of his pictures which refers to severe conflicts. The fat undertaker is sitting in the doorway and is smoking a pipe. Behind him, there are rows of coffins on shelves: they are the goods of his trade and source of his wealth. According to the message of the picture, the obese and self-contended figure is the counterpart of starving proletarians, whose death will make such exploiters richer. The elements of the composition express this opposition and the proletariat's exclusion. The viewer sees the shop of the rich undertaker from outside only, the glass wall of the shop-window and the door-frame separate the closed inner world of the shop from people in the street. The undertaker is sitting in the doorway as if protecting his power. His symbolic figure points beyond the individual and carries a general social message.
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