California artist Ross Dickinson dramatized, by use of vivid colors, his state's endless confrontation between nature and man in his compelling "Valley Farms.” The contrast between the green of the verdant, irrigated farms and the reddish-brown of the arid, sharply sloping hills is pronounced. In the Great Depression, farmers from the drought-plagued Dust Bowl poured into these areas looking for more agricultural jobs than were available. Smithsonian American Art Museum. Transfer from the US Department of Labor.
:Seventy-five years ago, Americans were beset by an economic crisis that may seem all too familiar today. The national economy, in the wake of the stock market crash of October 1929, had fallen into an extended depression. Thousands of banks failed, wiping out the life's saving of millions of families. Businesses struggled or collapsed. Farmers battled drought, erosion and declining food prices.
A quarter of the labor force was unemployed, while an equal number worked reduced hours. Increasing numbers of people were homeless and hungry. Some 10,000 unemployed artists faced poverty.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, inaugurated in March 1933, and his administration soon initiated a series of economic recovery programs as part of what came to be known as the New Deal. Recognizing that artists not only needed employment, but that art was essential to sustaining America's spirit, the Treasury Department organized the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) in late 1933. It was the first federal government program to support the arts nationally.
Regional committees recruited artists who eagerly went to work all over the country. During PWAP's brief existence from December 1933 to June 1934, it employed 3,749 artists who created 15,663 paintings, murals, drawings, prints, sculpture and craft objects to embellish public buildings at a cost of $1,312,000. Later New Deal programs produced similar short-term benefits and enduring artwork.
In "Subway” Lily Furedi has assumed the viewpoint of a seated passenger looking down the car at her fellow riders. Characteristically, most people are keeping to themselves, although a man furtively peeks at a woman applying lipstick and a woman glances at the newspaper being read nearby. The artist seems interested in the sleeping, tuxedo-clad musician holding his violin case, presumably because her father was a professional cellist. Smithsonian American Art Museum. Transfer from the US Department of the Interior, National Park Service.
In return for modest incomes, the professional, unemployed artists who participated were encouraged to depict the "American Scene."
The result was a memorable series of works ranging from portraits and group likenesses to cityscapes and images of urban life to depictions of rural scenes and landscapes. They constitute, collectively, a lasting visual record of America at an important moment in its history.
Celebrating the 75th anniversary of the PWAP, the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) has organized an exhibition, "1934: A New Deal for Artists," on view through January 3, when it will begin a three-year national tour. Drawn from SAAM's unparalleled collection of New Deal art, the exhibition consists of 56 paintings, each by a different artist. It was ably organized by George Gurney, the museum's deputy chief curator, with Ann Prentice Wagner, a curatorial associate. A catalog will be available this summer.
Marking the opening of the exhibition in February, Elizabeth Broun, the Margaret and Terry Stent director of SAAM, observed, "The nation is engaged in a great discussion about how to restore confidence during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. One contentious issue is whether and how cultural initiatives should play a role in government recovery efforts. This exhibition, which focuses on the first US government program ever to provide direct support for artists, is relevant to that discussion. The legacy of New Deal cultural programs seems indisputable today as we cherish and mine the resources these 'workers' left us."
