The Federal Art Project (1935–1943) was a

New Deal The New Deal was a series of wide-reaching economic, social, and political reforms enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1938, in response to the Great Depression in the United States, Great Depressi ...

program to fund the

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

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 (Fed 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 United States Dollar, $4.88 billion all ...

projects sponsored by the

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; from 1935 to 1939, then known as the Work Projects Administration from 1939 to 1943) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to car ...

(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 (arts), 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 phy ...

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

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

. 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), the National Youth Administration, ...

, 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 Treasury, national treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States. It is one of 15 current United States federal executive departments, U.S. government departments. ...

: the

Public Works of Art Project The Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) was a New Deal work-relief program that employed professional artists to create sculptures, paintings, crafts and design for public buildings and parks during the Great Depression in the United States. The ...

(1933–1934), the

Section of Painting and Sculpture Section, Sectioning, or Sectioned may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * Section (music), a complete, but not independent, musical idea * Section (typography), a subdivision, especially of a chapter, in books and documents ** Section s ...

(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 De ...

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

Abstraction Abstraction is a process where general rules and concepts are derived from the use and classifying of specific examples, literal (reality, real or Abstract and concrete, concrete) signifiers, first principles, or other methods. "An 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 Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter. A major figure in the abstract expressionist movement, Pollock was widely noticed for his "Drip painting, drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household ...

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 Milwaukee Public Library (MPL) is the public library system in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States, consisting of a central library and 13 branches, all part of the Milwaukee County Federated Library System. MPL is the largest public library sy ...

. 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; 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 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 cultural figures of the interwar period, New York City photographs of architecture and urban design of the 1930s, and science ...

* Ida York Abelman * Gertrude Abercrombie * Benjamin Abramowitz *

Abe Ajay Abraham (Abe) Ajay (1919–1998) was an American artist who was best known for his artistic contributions for '' The New Masses'' magazine during the late 1930s and early 1940s.Langa, Helen. "'At Least Half the Pages Will Consist of Pictures': New ...

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 * Charles Alston *

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

* 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 Victor Mikhail Arnautoff (November 11, 1896 – March 22, 1979) was a Russian-American painter and professor of art. He worked in San Francisco and the Bay Area from 1925 to 1963, including two decades as a teacher at Stanford University, and was ...

* Sheva Ausubel * Jozef Bakos * Henry Bannarn * Belle Baranceanu *

Patrociño Barela Patrociño Barela, also known as Patrocinio Barela or Patrocino Barela (1900–1964), was a self-taught wood carver. Because of the religious nature of his subjects he was called a santo (art), santero, but he did secular work too. His work was ...

Will Barnet Will Barnet (May 25, 1911November 13, 2012) was an American visual artist and teacher, known for his paintings, watercolors, drawings, and prints depicting the human figure and animals, both in casual scenes of daily life and in transcendent d ...

Richmond Barthé James Richmond Barthé, also known as Richmond Barthé (January 28, 1901 – March 5, 1989) was an African Americans, African-American sculptor associated with the Harlem Renaissance. Barthé is best known for his portrayal of black subjects. The ...

Herbert Bayer Herbert Bayer (April 5, 1900 – September 30, 1985) was an Austrian and American graphic designer, painter, photographer, sculptor, art director, environmental and interior designer, and architect. He was instrumental in the development of the ...

William Baziotes William Baziotes (June 11, 1912 – June 6, 1963) was an American painter influenced by Surrealism and was a contributor to Abstract Expressionism. Life and career Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Greek parents Angelos and Stella, Baziotes w ...

* Lester Beall * Harrison Begay * Daisy Maud Bellis * Rainey Bennett *

Aaron Berkman Aaron Berkman (23 May 1900 – 1 March 1991) was an American Social realism, 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 Hartf ...

* Leon Bibel * 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 a ...

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

Lucienne Bloch Lucienne Bloch (1909-1999) was a Switzerland, Swiss-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 of Rivera's mural ''Man ...

* Aaron Bohrod * Ilya Bolotowsky * Adele Brandeis * Louise Brann *

Edgar Britton Edgar Britton (1901-1982) was an American painter, muralist and sculptor born in Kearney, Nebraska. He studied with Grant Wood at the University of Iowa, and he moved to Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most popu ...

Manuel Bromberg Manuel Abraham Bromberg (March 6, 1917 – February 3, 2022) was an American artist and educator. He served in the United States Army as Official War Artist for the European Theater of Operations, United States Army, European Theater of Operatio ...

* James Brooks *

Selma Burke Selma Hortense Burke (December 31, 1900 – August 29, 1995) was an American sculptor and a member of the Harlem Renaissance movement. Burke is best known for a bas relief portrait of President Franklin D. Roosevelt which may have been the model ...

* Letterio Calapai * Samuel Cashwan * Giorgio Cavallon * Daniel Celentano * Dane Chanase * Fay Chong * Claude Clark *

Max Arthur Cohn Max Arthur Cohn (1903–1998) was an English-born American artist. His family immigrated 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 Great ...

* Eldzier Cortor *

Arthur Covey Arthur Sinclair Covey (June 13, 1877 – February 5, 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 ...

* Alfred D. Crimi *

Francis Criss Francis Hyman Criss (1901 - 1973) was an American painter. Criss's style is associated with the American Precisionists like Charles Demuth and his friend Charles Sheeler. The work from his best-known years, the 1930s and 1940s, is characteriz ...

* Allan Crite * Robert Cronbach *

John Steuart Curry John Steuart Curry (November 14, 1897 – August 29, 1946) was an American painter whose career spanned the years from 1924 until his death. He was noted for his paintings depicting rural life in his home state, Kansas. Along with Thomas Hart B ...

* Philip Campbell Curtis *

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

* Stuart Davis *

Adolf Dehn Adolf Dehn (November 22, 1895 – May 19, 1968) was an American artist known mainly as a lithographer. Throughout his artistic career, he participated in and helped define some important movements in American art, including Regionalism (art), re ...

Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning ( , ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. Born in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, he moved to the United States in 1926, becoming a US citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married pa ...

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 * Jacob Elshin * George Pearse Ennis *

Angna Enters Anita "Angna" Enters (April 18, 1897 – February 25, 1989) was an American dancer, mime, painter, writer, novelist and playwright.Biographical note, Angna Enters Papers, Jerome Robbins Dance Division. The New York Public Library for the Perform ...

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

* Louis Ferstadt * Alexander Finta * Joseph Fleck * Seymour Fogel * Lily Furedi * George Michael Gaethke *

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 *

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 Vincent Glinsky (December 18, 1895 – March 19, 1975) was an American sculptor. He is especially noted for his architectural decorations. Life Vincent Glinsky was born in Russia on December 18, 1895 and emigrated to America just before World ...

* Bertram Goodman *

Arshile Gorky Arshile Gorky ( ; born Vostanik Manoug Adoian, ; April 15, 1904 – July 21, 1948) was an Armenian Americans, Armenian-American painter who had a seminal influence on Abstract Expressionism. He spent the last years of his life as a national of the ...

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 *

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 Am ...

* Marion Greenwood * Waylande Gregory *

Philip Guston Philip Guston (born Phillip Goldstein, June 27, 1913 – June 7, 1980) was a Canadian American painter, printmaker, muralist and draftsman. "Guston worked in a number of artistic modes, from Renaissance-inspired figuration to formally accomplis ...

* Irving Guyer * Abraham Harriton *

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 bor ...

* Knute Heldner * August Henkel *

Ralf Henricksen Ralph (Ralf) Christian Henricksen (1907 in Chicago, IL, United States – 1975 in East Lansing, MI, US) was an American born art educator, watercolorist, painter, and muralist. Education The son of Danish immigrant parents, Ralph Henricksen's f ...

* Magnus Colcord Heurlin *

Hilaire Hiler Hilaire Harzberg Hiler (July 16, 1898 – January 19, 1966) was an American artist, psychologist, and color theoretician who worked in Europe and United States during the mid-20th century. At home and abroad, Hiler worked as a muralist, jazz mu ...

* Louis Hirshman * Donal Hord * Axel Horn *

Milton Horn Milton Horn (September 1, 1906 – March 29, 1995) was a Ukrainian American sculptor and artist known for work that, according to a 1957 citation of honor from the American Institute of Architects, demonstrated "the truth that architecture an ...

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 * Edwin Boyd Johnson * Sargent Claude Johnson * Tom Loftin Johnson * William H. Johnson * Leonard D. Jungwirth * Reuben Kadish * Sheffield Kagy * Jacob Kainen * David Karfunkle *

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 *

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 danc ...

* Georgina Klitgaard * Gene Kloss *

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

* Edwin B. Knutesen *

Lee Krasner Lenore "Lee" Krasner (born Lena Krassner; October 27, 1908 – June 19, 1984) was an American painter and visual artist active primarily in New York whose work has been associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement. She received her ear ...

* Kalman Kubinyi *

Yasuo Kuniyoshi was a Japanese-American painter, photographer and printmaker. Early life Kuniyoshi was born on September 1, 1889, in Okayama, Japan. He immigrated to the United States in 1906 at 17, choosing not to attend military school in Japan. Kuniyoshi ...

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", an art form populariz ...

* Edward Laning * Michael Lantz *

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 *

Joseph Leboit Joseph Milton Leboit (November 22, 1907 – July 5, 2002) was an American graphic artist and psychoanalyst active in leftist politics. Early life Joseph Leboit was born Joseph Leibowitz in New York City in 1907 to recently arrived Eastern European ...

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. Early life William Robinson Leigh was born on September 23, 1866, at Maidstone Manor Farm, Berk ...

* Julian E. Levi * Jack Levine * Monty Lewis * Elba Lightfoot * Abraham Lishinsky * Michael Loew * Thomas Gaetano LoMedico *

Louis Lozowick Louis Lozowick (1892–1973) () 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 lithographs in a career that spanned 50 ...

Nan Lurie Nan Lurie (1906–1985) was an American printmaker and engraver (born in Odessa) known for 1930s works about racism and about the daily life of African Americans. She studied with Yasuo Kuniyoshi at the Art Students League. She married Kenneth ...

* Guy Maccoy * Stanton Macdonald-Wright * George McNeil * Moissaye Marans * David Margolis * Kyra Markham * Jack Markow *

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-American modern artist originally from Bohemia. Matulka's style ranged from Abstract expressionism to landscapes, sometimes in the same day. He has directly influenced artists like Dor ...

* Dina Melicov *

Hugh Mesibov Hugh Mesibov (December 29, 1916 – March 25, 2016 ) was an American abstract expressionist artist who began his career as a federal artist for the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression and later became a member of the 10th St ...

* 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 wrote about his experiences in California. He has been ...

Helmuth Naumer Helmuth Naumer Sr. (born 1907 in Reutlingen, Germany; died 16 June 1990) was an American artist. He painted subjects throughout the United States and around the world, but is best known for his works depicting landscapes of New Mexico.Flynn (1994) ...

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 Elizabeth Olds (December 10, 1896 – March 4, 1991) was an American artist known for her work in developing silkscreen as a fine arts medium. She was a painter and illustrator, but is primarily known as a printmaker, using silkscreen, woodcut, l ...

* John Opper * William C. Palmer *

Phillip Pavia Philip Pavia (1911-2005) was a culturally influential American artist of Italian descent, known for his scatter sculpture and figurative abstractions, and the debate he fostered among many of the 20th century's most important art thinkers. A foun ...

Irene Rice Pereira Irene Rice Pereira (August 5, 1902 – January 11, 1971) was an American abstract artist, poet and philosopher

* George Post * Gregorio Prestopino *

Mac Raboy Emmanuel "Mac" Raboy (April 9, 1914 – December 12, 1967) was an American comics artist best known for his comic-book work on Fawcett Comics' Captain Marvel Jr.Brent Frankenhoff & Maggie Thompson ''The Greatest Comic Book Covers Of All Time'' ...

Anton Refregier Anton Refregier (March 20, 1905 – October 10, 1979) was a painter and muralist active in Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project commissions, and in teaching art. He was a Russian immigrant to the United States. Among his best-k ...

Ad Reinhardt Adolph Friedrich Reinhardt (December 24, 1913 – August 30, 1967) was an American abstract painter and art theorist active in New York City for more than three decades. As a theorist he wrote and lectured extensively on art and was a ...

Misha Reznikoff Misha Reznikoff (1905–1971) was an American-Ukrainian artist noted for such pictures as ''The End of the Horse – Or New Deal'' (1934) and ''The Solidity of the Road to Metaphor and Memory'' (1935). He was born in Kyiv, Russian Empire, in 1905 ...

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 C ...

Diego Rivera Diego Rivera (; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957) was a Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the Mexican muralism, mural movement in Mexican art, Mexican and international art. Between 1922 and 1953, Rivera painted mural ...

* José de Rivera * Emanuel Glicen Romano *

Mark Rothko Mark Rothko ( ; Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz until 1940; September 25, 1903February 25, 1970) was an American abstract art, abstract painter. He is best known for his color field paintings that depicted irregular and painterly rectangular reg ...

* 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 * Louis Schanker *

Edwin Scheier Edwin Scheier (November 11, 1910 – April 20, 2008) was an American artist, best known for his ceramics (art), ceramic works with his wife, Mary Scheier. Early life Edwin Scheier was born in The Bronx, New York City, New York, to a Jewish Ger ...

* Mary Scheier *

Carl Schmitt Carl Schmitt (11 July 1888 – 7 April 1985) was a German jurist, author, and political theorist. Schmitt wrote extensively about the effective wielding of political power. An authoritarian conservative theorist, he was noted as a critic of ...

* 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''. Born Benjamin Shahn in Ka ...

* William Howard Shuster * Mitchell Siporin *

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 know ...

* Joseph Solman * William Sommer * Isaac Soyer * Moses Soyer *

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 ...

Ralph Stackpole Ralph Ward Stackpole (May 1, 1885 – December 10, 1973) was an American sculpture, 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 so ...

* Cesare Stea * 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 Painting, painter, printmaking, 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 h ...

* Sakari Suzuki * Albert Swinden *

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

* Elizabeth Terrell * Lenore Thomas * Dox Thrash *

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 philosop ...

* Harry Everett Townsend * Edward Buk Ulreich *

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 *

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 ta ...

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

Edgar Yaeger Edgar Louis Yaeger (1904–1997) was an American modernist painter from Detroit, Michigan. Yaeger studied under Robert A. Herzberg at the Detroit School of Fine and Applied Arts, by which he was awarded the Founder's Society Purchase Prize. Subseq ...

* Bernard Zakheim * Karl Zerbe

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 ; ; ) is an artistic term for the highly realistic optical illusion of three-dimensional space and objects on a Two-dimensional space, two-dimensional surface. , which is most often associated with painting, tricks the viewer into perceiving p ...

painters as

William Harnett William Michael Harnett (August 10, 1848 – October 29, 1892) was an American Painting, 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 ...

; 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. "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 a ...

, and textile designer

Ruth Reeves Ruth Marie Reeves (1892–1966) was an American painter, Art Deco textile designer and expert on Indian handicrafts. Early life and education Ruth Marie Reeves was born in Redlands, California, on July 14, 1892. She attended the Pratt Institute i ...

. 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 known for shaping the fields of American studies, American literature, and American folklore. Biography Rourke was born in Cleveland, Ohio, t ...

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

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art is an 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 charge, the museum was privately established in ...

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, Panel from reredos at the Church of Sanctuario at Chimayo 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

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 agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the United States government established in 1949 to help manage and support the basic functioning of federal agencies. G ...

(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 (January 8, 1933 – January 23, 2024) was an American radio and television commentator, writer, and musician. Osgood was best known both for being the host of ''CBS News Sunday Morning'', a role he held for over 22 year ...

. 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 university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

''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 a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

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 (SAAM; 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 one of the world's lar ...

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

George Mason University George Mason University (GMU) is a Public university, public research university in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. Located in Northern Virginia near Washington, D.C., the university is named in honor of George Mason, a Founding Father ...

WPA Murals and American Abstract Artists
at

American Abstract Artists American Abstract Artists (AAA) was founded in 1937 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 f ...

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 (UMMA) is one of the largest university art museums in the United States, located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with . Built as a war memorial in 1909 for the university's fallen alumni from the Civil War, Alu ...

WNYC and the WPA Federal Art Project
{{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.