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Federal Art Project

Article Discussion

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The Federal Art Project (1935–1943) was a New Deal program to fund the visual arts in the United States. Under national director Holger Cahill, it was one of five Federal Project Number One projects sponsored by the Works Progress Administration (WPA), and the largest of the New Deal art projects. It was created not as a cultural activity, but as a relief measure to employ artists and artisans to create murals, easel paintings, sculpture, graphic art, posters, photography, theatre scenic design, and arts and crafts. The WPA Federal Art Project established more than 100 community art centers throughout the country, researched and documented American design, commissioned a significant body of public art without restriction to content or subject matter, and sustained some 10,000 artists and craft workers during the Great Depression. According to American Heritage, “Something like 400,000 easel paintings, murals, prints, posters, and renderings were produced by WPA artists during the eight years of the project’s existence, virtually free of government pressure to control subject matter, interpretation, or style.”<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

BackgroundEdit

Template:See also Template:Multiple image The Federal Art Project was the visual arts arm of Federal Project Number One, a program of the Works Progress Administration, which was intended to provide employment for struggling artists during the Great Depression. Funded under the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935, it operated from August 29, 1935, until June 30, 1943. It was created as a relief measure to employ artists and artisans to create murals, easel paintings, sculpture, graphic art, posters, photographs, Index of American Design documentation, museum and theatre scenic design, and arts and crafts. The Federal Art Project operated community art centers throughout the country where craft workers and artists worked, exhibited, and educated others.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The project created more than 200,000 separate works, some of them remaining among the most significant pieces of public art in the country.<ref name="Kalfatovic">Template:Cite book</ref>

The Federal Art Project's primary goals were to employ out-of-work artists and to provide art for nonfederal municipal buildings and public spaces. Artists were paid $23.60 a week; tax-supported institutions such as schools, hospitals, and public buildings paid only for materials.<ref name="NYT American Murals">Template:Cite news</ref> The work was divided into art production, art instruction, and art research. The primary output of the art-research group was the Index of American Design, a mammoth and comprehensive study of American material culture.

As many as 10,000 artists were commissioned to produce work for the WPA Federal Art Project,<ref name="Brian Naylor"/> the largest of the New Deal art projects. Three comparable but distinctly separate New Deal art projects were administered by the United States Department of the Treasury: the Public Works of Art Project (1933–1934), the Section of Painting and Sculpture (1934–1943), and the Treasury Relief Art Project (1935–1938).<ref name="GSA Inventory Project">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The WPA program made no distinction between representational and nonrepresentational art. Abstraction had not yet gained favor in the 1930s and 1940s, so was virtually unsalable. As a result, the Federal Art Project supported such iconic artists as Jackson Pollock before their work could earn them income.<ref>Atkins, Robert (1993). ArtSpoke: A Guide to Modern Ideas, Movements, and Buzzwords, 1848-1944. Abbeville Press. Template:ISBN.</ref>

One particular success was the Milwaukee Handicraft Project, which started in 1935 as an experiment that employed 900 people who were classified as unemployable due to their age or disability.<ref name="When Art Worked"/>Template:Rp The project came to employ about 5,000 unskilled workers, many of them women and the long-term unemployed. Historian John Gurda observed that the city's unemployment hovered at 40% in 1933. "In that year," he said, "53 percent of Milwaukee's property taxes went unpaid because people just could not afford to make the tax payments."<ref name="Handicraft WPR">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Workers were taught bookbinding, block printing, and design, which they used to create handmade art books and children's books. They produced toys, dolls,<ref name="MOWA">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> theatre costumes, quilts,<ref name="Handicraft WPR"/> rugs, draperies, wall hangings, and furniture that were purchased by schools, hospitals,<ref name="When Art Worked"/>Template:Rp and municipal organizations<ref name="My Day November 13">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> for the cost of materials only.<ref name="UWM">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 2014, when the Museum of Wisconsin Art mounted an exhibition of items created by the Milwaukee Handicraft Project, furniture from it was still being used at the Milwaukee Public Library.<ref name="Handicraft WPR"/>

Holger Cahill was national director of the Federal Art Project. Other administrators included Audrey McMahon, director of the New York Region (New York, New Jersey, and Philadelphia); Clement B. Haupers, director for Minnesota;<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> George Godfrey Thorp (Illinois),<ref>Smithsonian. Archives of American Art. George Godfrey Thorp papers, 1941–1970</ref> and Robert Bruce Inverarity, director for Washington. Regional New York supervisors of the Federal Art Project have included sculptor William Ehrich (1897–1960) of the Buffalo Unit (1938–1939), project director of the Buffalo Zoo expansion.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Notable artistsEdit

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Some 10,000 artists were commissioned to work for the Federal Art Project.<ref name="Brian Naylor"/> Notable artists include the following:

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Community Art Center programEdit

Template:Multiple image The first federally sponsored community art center opened in December 1936 in Raleigh, North Carolina.<ref name="ALA"/>

State City Name Notes
Alabama Birmingham Extension art gallery<ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Alabama Birmingham Healey School Art Gallery <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Alabama Mobile Mobile Art Center, Public Library Building <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Arizona Phoenix Phoenix Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
District of Columbia Washington, D.C. Children's Art Gallery <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Florida Bradenton Bradenton Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Florida Coral Gables Coral Gables Art Gallery Extension art gallery<ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Florida Daytona Beach Daytona Beach Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Florida Jacksonville Jacksonville Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Florida Jacksonville Jacksonville Beach Art Gallery Extension art gallery<ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Florida Jacksonville Jacksonville Negro Art Center Extension art gallery<ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation CitationClass=web

}}</ref>

Florida Key West Key West Community Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Florida Miami Miami Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Florida Milton Milton Art Gallery Extension art gallery<ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Florida New Smyrna Beach New Smyrna Beach Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Florida Ocala Ocala Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Florida Pensacola Pensacola Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Florida St. Petersburg Jordan Park Negro Exhibition Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Florida St. Petersburg St. Petersburg Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Florida St. Petersburg St. Petersburg Civic Exhibition Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Florida Tampa Tampa Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Florida Tampa West Tampa Negro Art Gallery <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Illinois Chicago Hyde Park Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Illinois Chicago South Side Community Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Iowa Mason City Mason City Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Iowa Ottumwa Ottumwa Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Iowa Sioux City Sioux City Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Kansas Topeka Topeka Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Minnesota Minneapolis Walker Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp<ref name="Rash WPA Roots">Template:Cite news</ref>
Mississippi Greenville Delta Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Mississippi Oxford Oxford Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Mississippi Sunflower Sunflower County Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Missouri St. Louis The People's Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Montana Butte Butte Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Montana Great Falls Great Falls Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
New Mexico Gallup Gallup Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp<ref name="WPA Art Gallup New Mexico"/>
New Mexico Melrose Melrose Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
New Mexico Roswell Roswell Museum and Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
New York City Brooklyn Brooklyn Community Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
New York City Manhattan Contemporary Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation CitationClass=web

}}</ref>

New York City Harlem Harlem Community Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
New York City Flushing, Queens Queensboro Community Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
North Carolina Cary Cary Gallery Extension art gallery<ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
North Carolina Greensboro Greensboro Art Center <ref name="ALA">Template:Cite journal</ref>
North Carolina Greenville Greenville Art Gallery <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
North Carolina Raleigh Crosby-Garfield School Extension art gallery<ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
North Carolina Raleigh Needham B. Broughton High School Extension art gallery<ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
North Carolina Raleigh Raleigh Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
North Carolina Wilmington Wilmington Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Oklahoma Bristow Bristow Art Gallery Extension art gallery<ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Oklahoma Claremore Claremore Art Gallery Extension art gallery<ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Oklahoma Claremore Will Rogers Public Library Extension art gallery<ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Oklahoma Clinton Clinton Art Gallery Extension art gallery<ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Oklahoma Cushing Cushing Art Gallery Extension art gallery<ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Oklahoma Edmond Edmond Art Gallery Extension art gallery<ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Oklahoma Marlow Marlow Art Gallery Extension art gallery<ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Oklahoma Oklahoma City Oklahoma Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Oklahoma Okmulgee Okmulgee Art Center Extension art gallery<ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Oklahoma Sapulpa Sapulpa Art Gallery Extension art gallery<ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Oklahoma Shawnee Shawnee Art Gallery Extension art gallery<ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Oklahoma Skiatook Skiatook Art Gallery Extension art gallery<ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Oregon Gold Beach Curry County Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Oregon La Grande Grande Ronde Valley Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Oregon Salem Salem Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Pennsylvania Somerset Somerset Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Tennessee Chattanooga Hamilton County Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Tennessee Memphis LeMoyne Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Tennessee Nashville Peabody Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Tennessee Norris Anderson County Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Utah Cedar City Cedar City Art Exhibition Association Extension art gallery<ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Utah Helper Helper Community Gallery Extension art gallery<ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Utah Price Price Community Gallery Extension art gallery<ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Utah Provo Provo Community Gallery Extension art gallery<ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Utah Salt Lake City Utah State Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Virginia Altavista Altavista Extension Gallery Extension art gallery<ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Virginia Big Stone Gap Big Stone Gap Art Gallery <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Virginia Lynchburg Lynchburg Art Gallery <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Virginia Richmond Children's Art Gallery <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Virginia Saluda Middlesex County Museum Extension art gallery<ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Washington Chehalis Lewis County Exhibition Center Extension art gallery<ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Washington Pullman Washington State College Extension art gallery<ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Washington Spokane Spokane Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp<ref name="Mahoney SAC">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation CitationClass=web

}}</ref>

West Virginia Morgantown Morgantown Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
West Virginia Parkersburg Parkersburg Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
West Virginia Scotts Run Scotts Run Art Gallery Extension art gallery<ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Wyoming Casper Casper Art Gallery Extension art gallery<ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Wyoming Lander Lander Art Gallery Extension art gallery<ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Wyoming Laramie Laramie Art Center <ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Wyoming Newcastle Lander Art Gallery Extension art gallery<ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Wyoming Rawlins Rawlins Art Gallery Extension art gallery<ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Wyoming Riverton Riverton Art Gallery Extension art gallery<ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Wyoming Rock Springs Rock Springs Art Gallery Extension art gallery<ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Wyoming Sheridan Sheridan Art Gallery Extension art gallery<ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp
Wyoming Torrington Torrington Art Gallery Extension art gallery<ref name="Kalfatovic"/>Template:Rp

Index of American DesignEdit

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File:Index-of-American-Design-Illinois.jpg
Federal Art Project Illinois poster for an exhibition of the Index of American Design

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The Index of American Design program of the Federal Art Project produced a pictorial survey of the crafts and decorative arts of the United States from the early colonial period to 1900. Artists working for the Index produced nearly 18,000 meticulously faithful watercolor drawings,<ref name="When Art Worked"/>Template:Rp documenting material culture by largely anonymous artisans.<ref name="Christensen">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp Objects surveyed ranged from furniture, silver, glass, stoneware and textiles to tavern signs, ships's figureheads, cigar-store figures, carousel horses, toys, tools and weather vanes.<ref name="When Art Worked"/>Template:Rp<ref name="Herzberg">Template:Cite news</ref> Photography was used only to a limited degree since artists could more accurately and effectively present the form, character, color and texture of the objects. The best drawings approach the work of such 19th-century trompe-l'œil painters as William Harnett; lesser works represent the process of artists who were given employment and expert training.<ref name="Christensen"/>Template:Rp

"It was not a nostalgic or antiquarian enterprise," wrote historian Roger G. Kennedy. "It was initiated by modernists dedicated to abstract design, hoping to influence industrial design — thus in many ways it parallelled the founding philosophy of the Museum of Modern Art in New York."<ref name="When Art Worked"/>Template:Rp

File:Cahill-Harlem-Community-Art-Center-1938.jpg
Holger Cahill, national director of the Federal Art Project, speaking at the Harlem Community Art Center (October 24, 1938)

Like all WPA programs, the Index had the primary purpose of providing employment.<ref name="NYT Jones">Template:Cite news</ref> Its function was to identify and record material of historical significance that had not been studied and was in danger of being lost. Its aim was to gather together these pictorial records into a body of material that would form the basis for organic development of American design — a usable American past accessible to artists, designers, manufacturers, museums, libraries and schools. The United States had no single comprehensive collection of authenticated historical native design comparable to those available to scholars, artists and industrial designers in Europe.<ref name="NYT Jewell">Template:Cite news</ref>

"In one sense the Index is a kind of archaeology," wrote Holger Cahill. "It helps to correct a bias which has tended to relegate the work of the craftsman and the folk artist to the subconscious of our history where it can be recovered only by digging. In the past we have lost whole sequences out of their story, and have all but forgotten the unique contribution of hand skills in our culture."<ref name="Christensen"/>Template:Rp

The Index of American Design operated in 34 states and the District of Columbia from 1935 to 1942. It was founded by Romana Javitz, head of the Picture Collection of the New York Public Library, and textile designer Ruth Reeves.<ref name="When Art Worked"/>Template:Rp Reeves was appointed the first national coordinator; she was succeeded by C. Adolph Glassgold (1936) and Benjamin Knotts (1940). Constance Rourke was national editor.<ref name="Christensen"/>Template:Rp The work is in the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The Index employed an average of 300 artists during its six years in operation.<ref name="Christensen"/>Template:Rp One artist was Magnus S. Fossum, a longtime farmer who was compelled by the Depression to move from the Midwest to Florida. After he lost his left hand in an accident in 1934, he produced watercolor renderings for the Index, using magnifiers and drafting instruments for accuracy and precision. Fossum eventually received an insurance settlement that made it possible for him to buy another farm and leave the Federal Art Project.<ref name="When Art Worked"/>Template:Rp

In her essay,'Picturing a Usable Past,' Virginia Tuttle Clayton, curator of the 2002-2003 exhibition, Drawing on America's Past: Folk Art, Modernism, and the Index of American Design, held at the National Gallery of Art noted that "the Index of American Design was the result of an ambitious and creative effort to furnish for the visual arts a usable past."<ref>Drawing on America's Past: Folk Art, Modernism, and the Index of American Design by Virginia Tuttle Clayton, Elizabeth Stillinger, Erika Doss, and Deborah Chotner. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2002.</ref>

  • Panel from reredos, church of sanctuario at chimayo 1943.8.6818.jpg

    Panel from reredos at the Church of Sanctuario at Chimayo

  • Fly Catcher.jpg

    Fly Catcher, 1937. Frank McEntee. National Gallery of Art

  • Magnus-Fossum-Index-of-American-Design-1940.jpg

    Magnus Fossum copying the 1770 Boston Town Coverlet (February 1940)

  • Boston-Town-Coverlet-Magnus-Fossum-D12855.jpg

    Boston Town Coverlet
    Magnus Fossum (1935–1942)

  • Poke Bonnet.jpg

    Poke Bonnet,Irene Lawson. Index of American Design. National Gallery of Art

  • Daguerreotype case 1943.8.9185.jpg

    Daguerreotype Case Index of American Design

  • Age of chivalry circus wagon 1943.8.7735.jpg

    "Age of Chivalry" Circus Wagon, c. 1938

  • Noah's ark and animals 1943.8.7806.jpg

    Noah's Ark with animals

Poster DivisionEdit

File:Art classes for children LCCN98510141.jpg
WPA poster advertising art classes for children

Template:Anchor The WPA Poster Division was headed by Richard Floethe.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref> The WPA Poster Division is thought to have produced upward of 35,000 designs and printed some two million posters, originally by hand but quickly transitioning to widespread adoption of the silkscreen process.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=":0" /> The Poster Division began in New York City and by 1938 had artists in 18 states; the Chicago unit was the second-most productive after New York.<ref name=":0" /> According to preeminent New Deal art historian Francis V. O’Connor, only about 2,000 surviving examples of WPA poster art are held in the nation’s library and museum print collections.<ref name=":0" />

WPA Art Recovery ProjectEdit

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Hundreds of thousands of artworks were commissioned under the Federal Art Project.<ref name="Brian Naylor">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Many of the portable works have been lost, abandoned, or given away as unauthorized gifts. As custodian of the work, which remains federal property, the General Services Administration (GSA) maintains an inventory<ref name="GSA Inventory">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and works with the FBI and art community to identify and recover WPA art.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 2010, it produced a 22-minute documentary about the WPA Art Recovery Project, "Returning America’s Art to America", narrated by Charles Osgood.<ref name="WPA Art Recovery Project">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In July 2014, the GSA estimated that only 20,000 of the portable works have been located to date.<ref name="GSA Inventory"/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 2015, GSA investigators found 122 Federal Art Project paintings in California libraries, where most had been stored and forgotten.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

See alsoEdit

ReferencesEdit

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Further readingEdit

  • DeNoon, Christopher. Posters of the WPA (Los Angeles: Wheatley Press, 1987).
  • Grieve, Victoria. The Federal Art Project and the Creation of Middlebrow Culture (2009) excerpt
  • Template:Cite book
  • Kelly, Andrew, Kentucky by Design: American Culture, the Decorative Arts and the Federal Art Project's Index of American Design, University Press of Kentucky, 2015, Template:ISBN
  • Russo, Jillian. "The Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project Reconsidered." Visual Resources 34.1-2 (2018): 13-32.

External linksEdit

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