The Federal Art Project (1935–1943) was a

New Deal The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Con ...

program to fund the

visual arts The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile art ...

in the United States. Under national director Holger Cahill, it was one of five

Federal Project Number One Federal Project Number One, also referred to as Federal One, is the collective name for a group of projects under the Works Progress Administration, a New Deal program in the United States. Of the $4.88 billion allocated by the Emergency Relief ...

projects sponsored by the

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...

(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 Public art is art in any media whose form, function and meaning are created for the general public through a public process. It is a specific art genre with its own professional and critical discourse. Public art is visually and physically acce ...

without restriction to content or subject matter, and sustained some 10,000 artists and craft workers during the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

. 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.”

Background

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 The Relief Appropriation Act of 1935 was passed on April 8, 1935, as a part of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal. It was a large public works program that included the Works Progress Administration (WPA), Public Works Administration (PWA), ...

, 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. The project created more than 200,000 separate works, some of them remaining among the most significant pieces of public art in the country. 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. 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, 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 Department of the Treasury (USDT) is the national treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States, where it serves as an executive department. The department oversees the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and ...

: the Public Works of Art Project (1933–1934), the Section of Painting and Sculpture (1934–1943), and the

Treasury Relief Art Project The Treasury Relief Art Project (TRAP) was a New Deal arts program that commissioned visual artists to provide artistic decoration for existing Federal buildings during the Great Depression in the United States. A project of the United States ...

(1935–1938). The WPA program made no distinction between representational and nonrepresentational art.

Abstraction Abstraction in its main sense is a conceptual process wherein general rules and concepts are derived from the usage and classification of specific examples, literal ("real" or " concrete") signifiers, first principles, or other methods. "An abst ...

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 Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionism, abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his "Drip painting, drip technique" of pouring or splas ...

before their work could earn them income. 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. 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." Workers were taught bookbinding, block printing, and design, which they used to create handmade art books and children's books. They produced toys, dolls, theatre costumes, quilts, rugs, draperies, wall hangings, and furniture that were purchased by schools, hospitals, and municipal organizations for the cost of materials only. 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. Holger Cahill was national director of the Federal Art Project. Other administrators included

Audrey McMahon Audrey McMahon (1898 – August 20, 1981) was the Director of the New York region of the Federal Art Project from 1935 to 1943;O'Connor, Francis V. "Audrey McMahon." in O'Connor, Francis V., ed. ''The New Deal Art Projects: An Anthology of Mem ...

, director of the New York Region (New York, New Jersey, and Philadelphia); Clement B. Haupers, director for Minnesota; George Godfrey Thorp (Illinois), 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 Buffalo Zoo is a zoo was located at 300 Parkside Ave in Buffalo, New York, is the seventh oldest zoo in the United States. Each year, the Buffalo Zoo welcomes approximately 400,000 visitors and is the second largest tourist attraction in Western N ...

expansion.

Notable artists

Some 10,000 artists were commissioned to work for the Federal Art Project. Notable artists include the following: * William Abbenseth *

Berenice Abbott Berenice Alice Abbott (July 17, 1898 – December 9, 1991) was an American photographer best known for her portraits of between-the-wars 20th century cultural figures, New York City photographs of architecture and urban design of the 1930s, and ...

* Ida York Abelman *

Gertrude Abercrombie Gertrude Abercrombie (February 17, 1909 – July 3, 1977) was an American painter based in Chicago. Called "the queen of the bohemian artists", Abercrombie was involved in the Chicago jazz scene and was friends with musicians such as Dizzy Gille ...

Benjamin Abramowitz Benjamin Abramowitz (also known as "Ben Hoffman" during the late 1930s and early 1940s) was an American painter, printmaker, and sculptor. First recognized for his contribution at age 19 as senior artist with the Federal Art Project of the Work ...

* Abe Ajay *

Ivan Albright Ivan Le Lorraine Albright (February 20, 1897 – November 18, 1983) was an American painter, sculptor and print-maker most renowned for his self-portraits, character studies, and still lifes. Due to his technique and dark subject matter, he is of ...

Maxine Albro Maxine Albro (January 20, 1893 – July 19, 1966) was an American painter, muralist, lithographer, mosaic artist, and sculptor. She was one of America's leading female artists, and one of the few women commissioned under the New Deal's Federal A ...

* Charles Alston *

Harold Ambellan Harold Ambellan (1912–2006) was an American sculptor. Born in Buffalo, New York Ambellan provided sculpture for New Deal-era projects and served as President of the Sculptors Guild in 1941, prior to his service in the U.S. military. Ambellan e ...

* Luis Arenal *

Bruce Ariss Bruce Wallace Ariss, Jr. (October 10, 1911 – September 11, 1994) was an American painter, muralist, writer, illustrator, editor as well as theater and set designer, amateur playwright and actor, and overall icon on the Monterey Peninsula, Calif ...

* Victor Arnautoff * Sheva Ausubel *

Jozef Bakos Jozef Bakos (1891–1977) was an American painter best known for his Western landscapes. Bakos was one of Los Cinco Pintores, who worked in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Bakos studied art with John E. Thompson at the Albright Art Institute in Buffalo, ...

Henry Bannarn Henry Wilmer "Mike" Bannarn (July 17, 1910 – September 20, 1965) was an African-American artist, best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance period. He is known for his work in sculpture and as a character artist in the various paint m ...

Belle Baranceanu Belle Goldschlager Baranceanu (July 17, 1902January 17, 1988) was an American painter, teacher, muralist, lithographer, engraver and illustrator. She was born Belle Goldschlager in Chicago, Illinois (Baranceanu was her mother's maiden name). Her ...

* Patrociño Barela * Will Barnet * Richmond Barthé * Herbert Bayer * William Baziotes * Lester Beall *

Harrison Begay Harrison Begay, also known as Haashké yah Níyá (meaning "Warrior Who Walked Up to His Enemy" or "Wandering Boy") (November 15, 1914 or 1917 – August 18, 2012) was a renowned Diné (Navajo) painter, printmaker, and illustrator. Begay speciali ...

* Daisy Maud Bellis * Rainey Bennett *

Aaron Berkman Aaron Berkman (23 May 1900 – 1 March 1991) was an American Social Realist and Modern painter who was involved in the Federal Art Project, which was the visual arts arm of the Great Depression-era New Deal. Although born in Hartford, Connecti ...

Leon Bibel Leon Bibel (1913–1995) was a Polish-born American painter and printmaker during the Great Depression. His themes were the social condition of workers and the politics of protest and war, although cityscapes and landscapes were included among h ...

* Robert Blackburn *

Arnold Blanch Arnold Blanch (June 4, 1896 – October 3, 1968), was born and raised in Mantorville, Minnesota. He was an American modernist painter, etcher, illustrator, lithographer, muralist, printmaker and art teacher. Life His modernist paintings are ...

Lucile Blanch Lucile Esma Lundquist Blanch (December 31, 1895 – October 31, 1981) was an American artist, art educator, and Guggenheim Fellow. She was noted for the murals she created for the U.S. Treasury Department's Section of Fine Arts during the Great ...

Lucienne Bloch Lucienne Bloch (January 5, 1909 – March 13, 1999) was a Switzerland-born American artist. She was best known for her murals and for her association with the Mexican artist Diego Rivera, for whom she produced the only existing photographs o ...

Aaron Bohrod Aaron Bohrod (21 November 1907 – 3 April 1992) was an American artist best known for his trompe-l'œil still-life paintings. Education Bohrod was born in Chicago in 1907, the son of an emigree Bessarabian-Jewish grocer. Bohrod studied at ...

* Ilya Bolotowsky *

Adele Brandeis Adele Brandeis (1885–1975) was an American art administrator from Louisville, Kentucky. Work In 1911, Brandeis presented a paper on "The Development of Art in Cincinnati" to the Women's Club of Louisville, where she highlighted the crucial ...

* Louise Brann * Edgar Britton *

Manuel Bromberg Manuel Abraham Bromberg (March 6, 1917 – February 3, 2022) was an American artist and Professor Emeritus of Art, at the State University of New York at New Paltz. He was a 1946 Guggenheim Fellow. Life Bromberg was born in Centerville, Iowa, to ...

* James Brooks * Selma Burke * Letterio Calapai * Samuel Cashwan *

Giorgio Cavallon Giorgio Cavallon (March 3, 1904 – December 22, 1989) was a founding member of the American Abstract Artists and a pioneer Abstract Expressionist. Biography Giorgio Cavallon was born March 3, 1904 in Sorio, a hamlet of the municipality of Ga ...

Daniel Celentano Daniel Celentano (1902–1980) was an American Scene artist who made realistic paintings of everyday life in New York, particularly within the Italian neighborhood of East Harlem where he lived. During the Great Depression he painted murals ...

Dane Chanase Riccardo Dane Chanase (October 21, 1894 - July 15, 1975) was an American painter and printmaker. Life Chanase was born in Palermo, Italy. He exhibited at the Salon d'Automne. He served in World War I. He married artist Sheva Ausubel (1896– ...

Fay Chong Fay Chong (1912–1973) was a Chinese Americans, Chinese-American artist and educator, well known for his printmaking and watercolor painting. He was also known for his activities as an arts organizer, arts educator and WPA-era artist. Chong was ...

Claude Clark Claude Clark (November 11, 1915 – April 21, 2001) was an American Painting, painter, Printmaking, printmaker and art educator. Clark's subject matter was the diaspora of African American culture, including dance scenes, Street children, street ...

Max Arthur Cohn Max Arthur Cohn (1903–1998) was an American artist, born in England. His family emigrated to the United States when he was two years old. Cohn was one of the artists employed by the New Deal's Works Progress Administration (WPA) during the Gre ...

* Eldzier Cortor *

Arthur Covey Arthur Sinclair Covey (1877–1960) was an American muralist whose paintings depicted industrial workers doing their jobs. Personal life Covey was born in Leroy, Illinois on June 13, 1877 and was married to Mary Dorothea Sale from 1908 until h ...

* Alfred D. Crimi * Francis Criss * Allan Crite *

Robert Cronbach Robert Cronbach (1908 – 2001) American sculptor and teacher, born in St. Louis, Missouri where he began his art studies. He is best remembered for his medals, architectural sculpture and other works. His art studies continued at the Pennsy ...

* John Steuart Curry * Philip Campbell Curtis *

James Daugherty James Henry Daugherty (June 1, 1889 – February 21, 1974) was an American modernist painter, muralist, children's book author and illustrator. Life Daugherty was born in Asheville, North Carolina. He later lived in Indiana, Ohio, and at the a ...

* Stuart Davis * Adolf Dehn * Willem de Kooning *

Burgoyne Diller Burgoyne A. Diller (January 13, 1906 – January 30, 1965) was an American abstract painter. Many of his best-known works are characterized by orthogonal geometric forms that reflect his strong interest in the De Stijl movement and the work of ...

* Isami Doi * Mabel Dwight * Ruth Egri *

Fritz Eichenberg Fritz Eichenberg (October 24, 1901 – November 30, 1990) was a German-American illustrator and arts educator who worked primarily in wood engraving. His best-known works were concerned with religion, social justice and nonviolence. Biogra ...

* Jacob Elshin *

George Pearse Ennis George Pearse Ennis (July 21, 1884 – August 1936) was an American artist. He is known for his watercolors and for the stained glass window he designed for Washington Hall, the cadet mess hall at West Point. Life Ennis studied at Washington U ...

* Angna Enters *

Philip Evergood Philip Howard Francis Dixon Evergood (born Howard Blashki; 1901–1973) was an American painter, etcher, lithographer, sculptor, illustrator and writer. He was particularly active during the Depression and World War II era. Life Philip Evergo ...

Louis Ferstadt Louis Goodman Ferstadt (7 October 1900–August 1954) was an American muralist and comics artist. Biography Louis Goodman Ferstadt was born in Berestechko in the Russian Empire on 7 October 1900. His early childhood coincided with a pogrom and ...

Alexander Finta Alexander Finta (1881–1958) was a Hungarian-born American artist. Finta received his early education in Europe before moving onto Columbia University. He settled in Los Angeles, California in 1939 and proceeded to mainly create marble and bronz ...

* Joseph Fleck *

Seymour Fogel Seymour Fogel (August 24, 1911 – December 4, 1984) was an American artist whose artistic output included social realist art early in the century, abstract art and expressionist art at mid-century, and transcendental art late in the century ...

* Lily Furedi *

Todros Geller Todros Geller (Yiddish: טודרוס געלער; July 1, 1889 – February, 23 1949) was a Jewish American artist and teacher best known as a master printmaker and a leading artist among Chicago's art community. Early life and education Gell ...

* Aaron Gelman *

Eugenie Gershoy Eugenie Gershoy (January 1, 1901 – May 8, 1986) was an American sculptor and watercolorist. Life Gershoy emigrated to New York City with her family in 1903. Aided by scholarships, she studied at the Art Students League under Alexander Stirlin ...

Enrico Glicenstein Enrico Glicenstein (24 May 1870 – 30 December 1942) was a Polish-born sculptor who lived in Italy and the United States. Life Glicenstein was born in Turek, Poland in 1870 and named Enoch Hendryk Glicenstein. His father was a teacher who also w ...

* Vincent Glinsky * Bertram Goodman *

Arshile Gorky Arshile Gorky (; born Vostanik Manoug Adoian, hy, Ոստանիկ Մանուկ Ատոյեան; April 15, 1904 – July 21, 1948) was an Armenian-American painter who had a seminal influence on Abstract Expressionism. He spent the last years of hi ...

Harry Gottlieb Harry Gottlieb (September 23, 1895 – July 4, 1992) was an American painter, screen printer, lithographer, and educator. Biography Gottlieb was born in Bucharest, Romania on September 23, 1895. He immigrated to America in 1907, and his family s ...

* Blanche Grambs *

Morris Graves Morris Graves (August 28, 1910 – May 5, 2001) was an American painter. He was one of the earliest Modern artists from the Pacific Northwest to achieve national and international acclaim. His style, referred to by some reviewers as Mysticism, ...

Balcomb Greene Balcomb Greene (1904–1990) was an American artist and teacher. He and his wife, artist Gertrude Glass Greene, were heavily involved in political activism to promote mainstream acceptance of abstract art and were founding members of the Ame ...

Marion Greenwood Marion Greenwood (April 6, 1909 – August 20, 1970) was an American social realist artist who became popular starting in the 1920s and became renowned in both the United States and Mexico. She is most well known for her murals, but she also pra ...

* Waylande Gregory *

Philip Guston Philip Guston (born Phillip Goldstein, June 27, 1913 – June 7, 1980), was a Canadian American painter, printmaker, muralist and draftsman. Early in his five decade career, muralist David Siquieros described him as one of "the most promising ...

Irving Guyer Irving Guyer (1916–2012) was an American people, American painter. While successful in New York through the 1960s, Guyer chose to work away from the New York gallery scene for much of his career. In the last decades of his life, he developed i ...

Abraham Harriton Abraham Harriton was a Romanian-born American modernist artist and social realism painter in the United States. Early life and education Born in 1893 in Bucharest, then the Kingdom of Romania, Harriton studied at the National Academy of Design ...

Marsden Hartley Marsden Hartley (January 4, 1877 – September 2, 1943) was an American Modernist painter, poet, and essayist. Hartley developed his painting abilities by observing Cubist artists in Paris and Berlin. Early life and education Hartley was born ...

* Knute Heldner * August Henkel * Ralf Henricksen * Magnus Colcord Heurlin * Hilaire Hiler * Louis Hirshman *

Donal Hord Donal Hord (February 26, 1902 – June 29, 1966), an American sculptor, was born Donald Horr in Prentice, Wisconsin. Early life In 1914, Hord and his mother moved west, to Seattle, Washington. Shortly thereafter he contracted rheumatic fever, ...

Axel Horn Axel Horn (born January 11, 1913 – March 5, 2001) was an American artist. His name is sometimes listed as "Axel Horr" as an erroneous reading of his signature on paintings; this error is reflected in the Archives of American Art, leading to co ...

* Milton Horn *

Allan Houser Allan Capron Houser or Haozous (June 30, 1914 – August 22, 1994) was a Chiricahua Apache sculptor, painter and book illustrator born in Oklahoma. *

Eitaro Ishigaki was an American artist. Life Eitaro Ishigaki was born in Taiji, Wakayama, Japan in 1893. At the age of sixteen he emigrated to America in to live with his father in Seattle. A year later, in 1910, they moved to California, and in 1912, Ishigaki ...

* Edwin Boyd Johnson *

Sargent Claude Johnson Sargent Claude Johnson (October 7, 1888 – October 10, 1967) was one of the first African-American artists working in California to achieve a national reputation.

* Tom Loftin Johnson * William H. Johnson * Leonard D. Jungwirth *

Reuben Kadish Reuben Kadish (January 29, 1913 – September 20, 1992) was an American artist, specializing as a sculptor, draughtsman, muralist, painter, and printmaker. In his later career he also taught art history and sculpture in New York City. Biograph ...

* Sheffield Kagy * Jacob Kainen *

David Karfunkle David Karfunkle (1880–1959) was an American artist. He is known for his mural, "Exploitation of Labor and Hoarding of Wealth", painted in 1936 at the Harlem Courthouse. Biography He was born in Vienna. He studied with Ludwig von Herterich, ...

Leon Kelly Leon Kelly (October 21, 1901 – June 28, 1982) was an American artist born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is most well known for his contributions to American Surrealism, but his work also encompassed styles such as Cubism, Social Realism, a ...

Paul Kelpe Paul Kelpe (; January 15, 1902 – December 8, 1985) was a German-born American abstract painter. His constructions integrating found objects into paintings were the first such works created in the United States and he painted two of the fi ...

Troy Kinney Troy Sylvanus Kinney (December 1, 1871 – January 29, 1938) was an American artist, etcher, and author. Troy Kinney was most notable for his works portraying dance performers, fanciful subjects, and classically styled nudes. He worked with dance ...

Georgina Klitgaard Georgina Klitgaard ( Berrian; July 3, 1889/1893 – January 12, 1976) was an American artist. * Gene Kloss *

Karl Knaths Karl Knaths (October 21, 1891 – March 9, 1971) was an American artist whose personal approach to the Cubist aesthetic led him to create paintings which, while abstract, contained readily identifiable subjects. In addition to the Cubist painte ...

* Edwin B. Knutesen * Lee Krasner * Kalman Kubinyi *

Yasuo Kuniyoshi was a Japanese-American painter, photographer and printmaker. Biography Kuniyoshi was born on September 1, 1889 in Okayama, Japan. He immigrated to the United States in 1906, choosing not to attend military school in Japan. Kuniyoshi original ...

Jacob Lawrence Jacob Armstead Lawrence (September 7, 1917 – June 9, 2000) was an American painter known for his portrayal of African-American historical subjects and contemporary life. Lawrence referred to his style as "dynamic cubism", although by his own ac ...

Edward Laning Edward Laning (1906–1981) was an American painter. Career Background Laning was born in 1906 in Petersburg, Illinois. He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago (1923–1924) and the University of Chicago, (1925–1927). He also studied at t ...

Michael Lantz Michael Lantz (born April 6, 1908 – April 1988) was an American sculptor and medalist. Lantz attended the National Academy of Design and the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design, and also worked as a "handy boy" in the sculptor Lee Lawrie's New ...

Blanche Lazzell Blanche Lazzell (October 10, 1878 – June 1, 1956) was an American painter, printmaking, printmaker and designer. Known especially for her Woodcut#White-line woodcut, white-line woodcuts, she was an early modernism, modernist American artist, ...

* Tom Lea *

Lawrence Lebduska Lawrence H. Lebduska (1894-1966) was an American artist who became known as a housepainter. Born in Baltimore, Maryland on September 1, 1894, his parents moved to Leipzig, Germany when he was 5. While in Germany, he studied stained glass under Josef ...

* Joseph Leboit *

William Robinson Leigh William Robinson Leigh (September 23, 1866 – March 11, 1955) was an American artist and illustrator, who was known for his painted Western scenes. Biography William Robinson Leigh was born on September 23, 1866, at Maidstone Manor Farm, B ...

Julian E. Levi Julian Edwin Levi (1900–1982) was an American painter. He was a 1968 Resident of the American Academy in Rome. He should not be confused with the New York art dealer Julien Levy, who introduced Salvador Dalí to American patrons at his Julie ...

Jack Levine Jack Levine (January 3, 1915November 8, 2010) was an American Social Realist painter and printmaker best known for his satires on modern life, political corruption, and biblical narratives. Levine is considered one of the key artists of the Bos ...

Monty Lewis Monty Lewis (born January 2, 1963) is an American football coach. Is the head football coach at Winfield High School in Winfield, KS. Lewis served as the head football coach at Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas from 1993 to 2001 and Fri ...

* Elba Lightfoot *

Abraham Lishinsky Abraham Lishinsky (19051982) is an American artist of the 20th Century, a painter and playwright, best known for seven murals completed for the federally funded agencies of the New Deal programs of the 1930s and 1940s. Born in the Russian Empire ...

* Michael Loew * Thomas Gaetano LoMedico *

Louis Lozowick Louis Lozowick (1892 – 1973) (ukr: Луї Лозовик) was a Ukrainian-born American painter and printmaker. He is recognized as an Art Deco and Precisionist artist, and mainly produced streamline, urban-inspired monochromatic lithogr ...

* Nan Lurie * Guy Maccoy * Stanton Macdonald-Wright * George McNeil * Moissaye Marans * David Margolis * Kyra Markham *

Jack Markow Jack Markow (1905-1983) was an American cartoonist who also wrote instructional books about cartooning, comic strips and comic art. For three years, he was the cartoon editor of ''Argosy (magazine), Argosy''. Born in London, Markow was a New Yor ...

Mercedes Matter Mercedes Matter (née Carles; 1913 – December 4, 2001) was an American painter, draughtswoman, and writer. She was a founding member of the American Abstract Artists, and the Founder and Dean Emeritus of the New York Studio School. ...

Jan Matulka Jan Matulka (7 November 1890 – 25 June 1972) was a Czech Americans, Czech-American modern artist originally from Bohemia. Matulka's style ranged from Abstract expressionism to Landscape painting, landscapes, sometimes in the same day. He has di ...

Dina Melicov Dina Melicov (1905–1969) was an American sculptor, and painter who studied at The Educational Alliance Art School. She graduated from Wadleigh High School for Girls, and studied with Solon Borglum. She married Samuel Gould. Dina Melicov was ...

* Hugh Mesibov * Katherine Milhous *

Jo Mora Joseph Jacinto Mora (October 22, 1876 – October 10, 1947) was a Uruguayan-born American cowboy, photographer, artist, cartoonist, illustrator, painter, muralist, sculptor, and historian who lived with the Hopi and wrote about his experiences in ...

* Helmuth Naumer *

Louise Nevelson Louise Nevelson (September 23, 1899 – April 17, 1988) was an American sculptor known for her monumental, monochromatic, wooden wall pieces and outdoor sculptures. Born in the Poltava Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Kyiv Oblast ...

* James Michael Newell * Spencer Baird Nichols * Elizabeth Olds * John Opper * William C. Palmer * Phillip Pavia * Irene Rice Pereira *

* George Post *

Gregorio Prestopino Gregorio Prestopino (1907–1984) was an American artist. According to the art historian Irma B. Jaffe, he was "one of the major American painters who refused to reject the image, ndhas devoted his career to depicting the human condition with a ...

* Mac Raboy * Anton Refregier * Ad Reinhardt * Misha Reznikoff *

Mischa Richter Mischa Richter (1910 – March 23, 2001) was an American cartoonist best known for his numerous cartoons published in ''The New Yorker'' over decades. Early life Richter was born in Kharkov, Russian Empire, where his father was the city's ...

Diego Rivera Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, known as Diego Rivera (; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957), was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the ...

José de Rivera José Ruiz de Rivera (September 18, 1904 March 12, 1985) was an American abstract sculptor. Life and career José Ruiz de Rivera was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and grew up in New Orleans. He dropped out of high school, but finished at a board ...

Emanuel Glicen Romano Emanuel Glicen Romano or Emanuel Glicenstein (1897–1984) was a painter born in Italy. He emigrated to America and spent some time in Safed in Israel. where he organised a museum for his father's work. Life Emanuel Glicenstein was born in Rome o ...

Mark Rothko Mark Rothko (), born Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz (russian: Ма́ркус Я́ковлевич Ротко́вич, link=no, lv, Markuss Rotkovičs, link=no; name not Anglicized until 1940; September 25, 1903 – February 25, 1970), was a Lat ...

* Alexander Rummler *

Augusta Savage Augusta Savage (born Augusta Christine Fells; February 29, 1892 – March 27, 1962) was an American sculptor associated with the Harlem Renaissance. She was also a teacher whose studio was important to the careers of a generation of artists who w ...

Concetta Scaravaglione Concetta Scaravaglione (July 9, 1900 – September 4, 1975) was an American sculptor. Her parents immigrated from Calabria, Italy, and Concetta was the youngest of nine children. She is known for her monumental figurative sculpture, her work fo ...

* Louis Schanker * Edwin Scheier * Mary Scheier *

Carl Schmitt Carl Schmitt (; 11 July 1888 – 7 April 1985) was a German jurist, political theorist, and prominent member of the Nazi Party. Schmitt wrote extensively about the effective wielding of political power. A conservative theorist, he is noted as ...

* William S. Schwartz *

Georgette Seabrooke Georgette Seabrooke (aka Georgette Seabrooke Powell; August 2, 1916 – December 27, 2011), was an American muralist, artist, illustrator, art therapist, non-profit chief executive and educator. She is best known for her 1936 mural, ''Recreation ...

Ben Shahn Ben Shahn (September 12, 1898 – March 14, 1969) was an American artist. He is best known for his works of social realism, his left-wing political views, and his series of lectures published as ''The Shape of Content''. Biography Shahn was bor ...

William Howard Shuster William Howard Shuster Jr. (1893–1969) was an American painter, sculptor and teacher. Early life Shuster was born November 26, 1893, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as the second of three children. Career He served in the U.S. Army during ...

Mitchell Siporin Mitchell Siporin (1910–1976) was a Social Realist American painter. Biography Mitchell Siporin was born on May 5, 1910 in New York City to Hyman, a truck driver, and Jennie Siporin, both immigrants from Poland, and grew up in Chicago.Abram ...

John French Sloan John French Sloan (August 2, 1871 – September 7, 1951) was an American painter and etcher. He is considered to be one of the founders of the Ashcan school of American art. He was also a member of the group known as The Eight. He is best known ...

Joseph Solman Joseph Solman (January 25, 1909 – April 16, 2008) was an American painter, a founder of The Ten, a group of New York City Expressionist painters in the 1930s. His best known works include his "Subway Gouaches" depicting travelers on the New ...

* William Sommer *

Isaac Soyer Isaac Soyer (April 26, 1902 – July 8, 1981) was a Russian-born American social realist painter and educator. His art work often portrayed working-class people of New York City in his paintings. Biography He was born as Isaac Schoar on April 26, ...

Moses Soyer Moses Soyer (December 25, 1899 – September 3, 1974) was an American social realist painter. Biography He was born as Moses Schoar and both he and his identical twin brother, Raphael, were born in Borisoglebsk, Tambov, a southern province of R ...

Raphael Soyer Raphael Zalman Soyer (December 25, 1899 – November 4, 1987) was a Russian-born American painter, draftsman, and printmaker. Soyer was referred to as an American scene painter. He is identified as a Social Realist because of his interest in men ...

Ralph Stackpole Ralph Ward Stackpole (May 1, 1885 – December 10, 1973) was an American sculptor, painter, muralist, etcher and art educator, San Francisco's leading artist during the 1920s and 1930s. Stackpole was involved in the art and causes of social realis ...

Cesare Stea Cesare Stea (August 17, 1893 – 1960) was an American sculptor and painter. Life Stea was born in Bari, Italy. He studied at the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design, National Academy of Design, Cooper Union and the Académie de la Grande Ch ...

* Walter Steinhart *

Joseph Stella Joseph Stella (born Giuseppe Michele Stella, June 13, 1877 – November 5, 1946) was an Italian-born American Futurist painter best known for his depictions of industrial America, especially his images of the Brooklyn Bridge. He is also ...

Harry Sternberg Harry Sternberg (1904–2001), was an American painter, printmaker and educator. He taught at the Art Students League of New York, from 1933 to c. 1966. Biography Childhood, family life, and education Sternberg's parents had immigrated from Ru ...

* Sakari Suzuki *

Albert Swinden Albert Swinden (1901–1961) was an English-born American abstract painter. He was one of the founders of the American Abstract Artists, and he created significant murals as part of the Federal Art Project. Life Albert Swinden was born in Birmi ...

Rufino Tamayo Rufino del Carmen Arellanes Tamayo (August 25, 1899 – June 24, 1991) was a Mexican painter of Zapotec heritage, born in Oaxaca de Juárez, Mexico.Sullivan, 170-171Ades, 357 Tamayo was active in the mid-20th century in Mexico and New York, ...

* Elizabeth Terrell * Lenore Thomas *

Dox Thrash Dox Thrash (1893–1965) was an African-American artist who was famed as a skilled draftsman, master printmaker, and painter and as the co-inventor of the Carborundum printmaking process.Donnelly, Michell"The Art of Dox Thrash" The Encyclopedia o ...

Mark Tobey Mark George Tobey (December 11, 1890 – April 24, 1976) was an American painter. His densely structured compositions, inspired by Asian calligraphy, resemble Abstract expressionism, although the motives for his compositions differ philosophi ...

* Harry Everett Townsend *

Edward Buk Ulreich Edward Buk Ulreich (February 12, 1884 – July 17, 1966) was an American artist. Born in Hungary, his work includes murals at the United States Courthouse (Tallahassee, Florida, 1936) completed in 1939. His work is also at the National Museum ...

Charles Umlauf Charles Umlauf (July 17, 1911 – November 19, 1994) was an American sculptor and teacher who was born in South Haven, Michigan. His sculptures can be found in churches, numerous public institutions, outdoor locations, and museums, including the ...

* Jacques Van Aalten *

Stuyvesant Van Veen Stuyvesant Van Veen (1910–1988) was an American artist and muralist. Life Stuyvesant Van Veen was born in NYC, Sept, 12, 1910. He studied at the National Academy of Design and the Art Students League. In 1929 at the age of 19, he became the you ...

Herman Volz Herman Roderick Volz (1904–1990) was a Swiss-American painter, muralist, lithographer, set designer, decorative artist and ceramist. He was politically active, vocal and often made social statements through his imagery and he was especially take ...

* Mark Voris * John Augustus Walker * Andrew Winter * Jean Xceron * Edgar Yaeger *

Bernard Zakheim Bernard Baruch Zakheim (April 4, 1898 – November 28, 1985) was a Warsaw-born San Francisco muralist, best known for his work on the Coit Tower murals. Early life and immigration Zakheim was born to a Hasidic Jewish family in Warsaw, then part ...

Karl Zerbe Karl Zerbe (September 16, 1903 – November 24, 1972) was a German-born American painter and educator. Biography Karl Zerbe was born on September 16, 1903 in Berlin, Germany. The family lived in Paris, France from 1904–1914, where his fat ...

Community Art Center program

The first federally sponsored community art center opened in December 1936 in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Index of American Design

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, documenting material culture by largely anonymous artisans. 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. 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 ''Trompe-l'œil'' ( , ; ) is an artistic term for the highly realistic optical illusion of three-dimensional space and objects on a two-dimensional surface. ''Trompe l'oeil'', which is most often associated with painting, tricks the viewer into ...

painters as

William Harnett William Michael Harnett (August 10, 1848 – October 29, 1892) was an Irish- American painter known for his trompe-l'œil still lifes of ordinary objects. Early life Harnett was born in Clonakilty, County Cork, Ireland during the time of the G ...

; lesser works represent the process of artists who were given employment and expert training. "It was not a nostalgic or antiquarian enterprise," wrote historian

Roger G. Kennedy Roger George Kennedy (August 3, 1926 – September 30, 2011) was an American polymath whose career included banking, television production, historical writing, and museum administration, the last as director of the Smithsonian Institution's Nati ...

. "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." Cahill-Harlem-Community-Art-Center-1938

Like all WPA programs, the Index had the primary purpose of providing employment. 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. "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." 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 The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress) ...

, and textile designer Ruth Reeves. Reeves was appointed the first national coordinator; she was succeeded by C. Adolph Glassgold (1936) and Benjamin Knotts (1940).

Constance Rourke Constance Mayfield Rourke (November 14, 1885 – March 29, 1941) was an American author and educator. She was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and attended Sorbonne and Vassar College. She taught at Vassar from 1910 to 1915. She died in Grand Rapids ...

was national editor. The work is in the collection of the

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of ch ...

in Washington, D.C. The Index employed an average of 300 artists during its six years in operation. 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. 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." File:Panel from reredos, church of sanctuario at chimayo 1943.8.6818.jpg, church of sanctuario at chimayo-panel from reredos File:Fly Catcher.jpg, Fly Catcher, 1937.Frank McEntee - National Gallery of Art. File:Magnus-Fossum-Index-of-American-Design-1940.jpg, Magnus Fossum copying the 1770 ''Boston Town Coverlet'' (February 1940) File:Boston-Town-Coverlet-Magnus-Fossum-D12855.jpg, ''Boston Town Coverlet''
Magnus Fossum (1935–1942) File:Poke Bonnet.jpg, Poke Bonnet,Irene Lawson. Index of American Design.National Gallery of Art File:Daguerreotype case 1943.8.9185.jpg, Daguerreotype Case Index of American Design File:Age of chivalry circus wagon 1943.8.7735.jpg, "Age of Chivalry" Circus Wagon, c. 1938 File:Noah's ark and animals 1943.8.7806.jpg, Noah's Ark with animals-Sunday toy

Poster Division

The WPA Poster Division was headed by Richard Floethe. 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. 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. 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.

WPA Art Recovery Project

Hundreds of thousands of artworks were commissioned under the Federal Art Project. 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 The General Services Administration (GSA) is an independent agency of the United States government established in 1949 to help manage and support the basic functioning of federal agencies. GSA supplies products and communications for U.S. gover ...

(GSA) maintains an inventory and works with the FBI and art community to identify and recover WPA art. In 2010, it produced a 22-minute documentary about the WPA Art Recovery Project, "Returning America’s Art to America", narrated by

Charles Osgood Charles Osgood Wood III (born January 8, 1933), known professionally as Charles Osgood, is an American radio and television commentator, writer and musician. Osgood is best known for being the host of ''CBS News Sunday Morning'', a role he held ...

. In July 2014, the GSA estimated that only 20,000 of the portable works have been located to date. In 2015, GSA investigators found 122 Federal Art Project paintings in California libraries, where most had been stored and forgotten.

References

External links

The Living New Deal
research project and online public archive at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant un ...

''Recovering America's Art for America''
(2010),

short documentary about efforts to recover WPA art
Posters for the People
online archive of WPA posters

at the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The libra ...

New Deal Art Registrywpamurals.com
– links to each state, with examples of WPA art in each
Federal Art Project Photographic Division collection at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art"1934: A New Deal for Artists"
Exhibition at the

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds ...

“Art Within Reach”: Federal Art Project Community Art Centers
at

George Mason University George Mason University (George Mason, Mason, or GMU) is a public research university in Fairfax County, Virginia with an independent City of Fairfax, Virginia postal address in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area. The university was origin ...

WPA Murals and American Abstract Artists
at

American Abstract Artists American Abstract Artists (AAA) was formed in 1936 in New York City, to promote and foster public understanding of abstract art. American Abstract Artists exhibitions, publications, and lectures helped to establish the organization as a major fo ...

WPA Prints and Murals in New YorkCollection: "Art of the Works Progress Administration WPA"
from the

University of Michigan Museum of Art The University of Michigan Museum of Art in Ann Arbor, Michigan with is one of the largest university art museums in the United States. Built as a war memorial in 1909 for the university's fallen alumni from the Civil War, Alumni Memorial Hall ori ...

{{Authority control New Deal projects of the arts Works Progress Administration New Deal agencies American art Murals in the United States 1935 establishments in Washington, D.C. Government agencies established in 1935 Cultural history of the United States Public art in the United States Modern art 1943 disestablishments in Washington, D.C.