Federal Art Project

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"Wild Life: The National Parks Preserve All Life.", New York City Federal Art Project, WPA, 1940

The Federal Art Project (FAP) was the visual-arts arm of the Great Depression-era New Deal Work Projects Administration Federal One program in the United States. It operated from August 29, 1935, until June 30, 1943. Reputed to have created more than 200,000 separate works, FAP artists created posters, murals and paintings. Some works still stand among the most-significant pieces of public art in the country.

The program made no distinction between representational and nonrepresentational art. Abstraction had not yet gained favor in the 1930s and 1940s and, thus, was virtually unsalable. As a result, the program supported such iconic artists as Jackson Pollock before their work could earn them income.^[1]

The FAP's primary goals were to employ out-of-work artists and to provide art for non-federal government buildings: schools, hospitals, libraries, etc. 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.

The FAP was one of a short-lived series of Depression-era visual-arts programs, which included the Section of Painting and Sculpture and the Public Works of Art Project (both of which, unlike the WPA-operated FAP, were operated by the U.S. Department of the Treasury).

Notables

Some of the well-known artists supported by the project:

Berenice Abbott William Baziotes Thomas Hart Benton Leon Bibel Dorr Bothwell Eleanor Coen Francis Criss Stuart Davis Werner Drewes

Philip Evergood Arshile Gorky Adolph Gottlieb Harry Gottlieb William Gropper Philip Guston Marsden Hartley Donal Hord Albert Kotin

Lee Krasner Jacob Lawrence Tom Lea Conrad Marca-Relli John Marin Jan Matulka Louise Berliawsky Nevelson Jackson Pollock Daniel Rhodes

Mark Rothko Louis Schanker Georgette Seabrooke Ben Shahn Harry Shoulberg William Sommer Alton Tobey Mark Tobey

• Willem de Kooning and Santiago Martínez Delgado were also employed by the FAP temporarily but were unable to stay because they were not U.S. citizens at the time.

See also

• List of WPA artists

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Works Progress Administration

References

1. ^ Atkins, Robert (1993). ArtSpoke: A Guide to Modern Ideas, Movements, and Buzzwords, 1848-1944. Abbeville Press. ISBN 978-1558593886.

External links

• Exhibition: "1934: A New Deal for Artists". - Smithsonian American Art Museum.
• wpamurals.com: W.P.A. New Deal Art During the Great Depression - links to each state, with examples of WPA art in each
• "Art Within Reach" - Federal Art Project Community Art Centers
• Mark K. Christ & Sandra Taylor Smith, Arkansas Post Offices and the Treasury Department's Section Art Program, 1938-1942. Little Rock, Arkansas Historic Preservation Program.
• Iowa-born WPA Artist Robert Tabor
• Louis Schanker and the WPA in New York
• By the People, For the People: Posters from the WPA, 1936-1943
• A collection of 240 WPA Posters
• Federal Art Project Photographic Division collection at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art
• Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture - Federal Art Project

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