Richard Floethe (1901–1988) was an American artist. He served as the art director of 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 ...

's (WPA) Federal Art Project (FAP) New York City poster division and then went on to illustrate numerous books.

Biography

Floethe was born September 2, 1901 in Essen, Germany. He studied at the Dortmund Art School, the Munich State School of Art, and the

Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the , was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined Decorative arts, crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., ...

. Floethe emigrated to the United States in 1928. In 1936 Floethe became the art director of the New York City poster division of the

's (WPA)

Federal Art Project 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 Administratio ...

(FAP). He served as the director through 1939. He hired the artist

Anthony Velonis Anthony Velonis (23 October 1911 – 29 October 1997) was an American painter and designer born in New York City who helped introduce the public to silkscreen printing in the early 20th century. He married Elizabeth Amidon, with whom he had four ...

who introduced the silk-screening process into the program as a way to produce posters. In 1937, he married Louise Lee with whom he had two children. Louise Lee Floethe was the author of children's books and Richard Floethe illustrated many of her books. Floethe turned to illustration after his career with the WPA. He is also noted for creating a wordless novel, ''Summer Holiday'', published by The Brookdale Press in 1939.Summer Holiday
a bibliographic listing for the 1939 wordless novel Floethe's work was included in the 1944

Dallas Museum of Art The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) is an art museum located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas, along Woodall Rodgers Freeway between St. Paul and Harwood. In the 1970s, the museum moved from its previous location in Fair Park to the A ...

exhibition of the

National Serigraph Society The National Serigraph Society was founded in 1940 by a group of artists involved in the WPA Federal Art Project, including Anthony Velonis, Max Arthur Cohn, and Hyman Warsager. The creation of the society coincided with the rise of serigraphs ...

. In 1975 he donated a 1939 WPA calendar to 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 ...

. The calendar was an example of New York City Poster Division's work. Floethe died on September 30, 1988, in Sarasota, Florida. Floethe's work is in the

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) is an List of art museums#North America, art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at ...

, 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 ...

, and the

Delaware Art Museum The Delaware Art Museum is an art museum located on the Kentmere Parkway in Wilmington, Delaware, which holds a collection of more than 12,000 objects. The museum was founded in 1912 as the Wilmington Society of the Fine Arts in honor of the arti ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Floethe, Richard 1901 births 1988 deaths Artists from Essen 20th-century American illustrators Artists from New York City American male artists German illustrators German male artists German emigrants to the United States