In my small New England city, the post office was a down-scaled, classically-inspired structure of harmonious proportions, designed to serve as a symbolic link to a democratic ideal, filled with promise, several hundred miles south, in L’Enfant’s capital city of Washington, D.C.. For many years, when I was a young stamp collector, I would patiently stand in line at our post office, surrounded by the dull echo of voices reverberating off well-worn marble floors, studying the intricately- carved wood pilasters surrounding the postal clerk’s windows, as I awaited my turn. Out of boredom, my eyes would follow the reverberating sounds to the ceiling of this mundane, aging federal office building, where dusty globe lights hung from heavy black chains, beneath delicately-ribbed vaulted ceilings, darkened by grime. This scene, even then heavily frayed on the edges, hinted of a postal service long-past, once sanguine with national pride and the promise of all-weather efficiency.

(Above) Stuart Davis, (1894-1964) United States, SWING LANDSCAPE (1938), o/c, 86 3/4 x 173 1/8”, Frame: 88 1/2 x 174 3/4 x 3 ½”. Originally painted by Davis for the Williamsburg Housing Project, Brooklyn, NY. ©2011, Indiana University Art Museum, Bloomington, Indiana, #42.1. Photographers:  Michael Cavanagh and Kevin Montague fine arts magazine

Only then would I notice it, hidden in the shadows and veiled by the same ubiquitous gray that obliterated so many other features of this once-elegant building. Framed by dark walnut molding that coursed horizontally above a single door, marked ‘Postmaster’ in the center of the far wall, then moving upward at a forty-five degree angle from both sides to form an apex high above the floor, was a painted scene. Its colors dulled by years of neglect, I could make out a group of figures—Puritans by the look of it—the lead figure extending one hand toward a sundry collection of trade goods on the ground; the other upraised in the direction of a group of Native Americans, passive but cautious in the face of these strangers with their offer of uninvited largess. The scene appeared to represent, pictorially, my recollection of how my Connecticut city was once ‘purchased’ from the Pequot Indians, three centuries ago. Behind the gathering, the rendering ofa familiar landscape, marked by the convergence of three rivers and a configuration of rolling hills, mostly unchanged to this day.

I thought to ask myself at the time, “Who decided which scene should be painted here; how long ago was it done and who was the artist?” But, I must confess, the overall condition of the mural, the absence of dramatic lighting, or any signage describing its origins—together with the generalized indifference toward public art and its obvious Depression-Era stylistic influences—left most people, and me, cold.

As it turns out, the antidote for all of us, myself included, was the passage of time, a renewed interest in American art during the years leading up to and during the frenzy of World War II and—in light of our recent economic crisis—a fresh appreciation for the innovative programs that helped thousands and brought original art to hundreds of public places, like my once-regal post office.

Art had a friend in the White House in the 1930s. And it had the reluctant support of a divided Congress on how best to put America’s unemployed back to work. The Great Depression had taken its toll on everyday life, with snaking bread lines and desperate men selling what little they could offer on street corners, in every city in the country. Many had lost everything and hoped the government, under the newly-elected Franklin Roosevelt, could at least offer a hand up to a subsistence lifestyle. At the lowest point in the American economy, following the stock market crash of 1929, President Roosevelt proposed a far-reaching plan, as part of an omnibus recovery program, to put artists, crafts people and designers, among others, back to work in public spaces.

Coming into office in March of 1933, Roosevelt wasted no time implementing his economic rescue plan. The ‘New Deal’ was an effort to intervene in an unfolding economic disaster, quelling desperation and fear regarding rapidly deteriorating working and living conditions among a cash-strapped population. He believed that dependence on relief alone would destroy the American spirit and he mobilized the Congress to appropriate funds for a variety of infrastructure projects, including new roads, highways and public buildings. It is hard to imagine by today’s standards, with such skepticism and mistrust of the legislative process and the artistic establishment; but in the 1930s, artists and craftsmen figured prominently in plans to turn around the economic climate, while adding quality of life to the nation’s cities and towns.

My source for understanding, in greater depth than the standard material usually available for examining the Federal government’s response to the crisis related to the artistic community, is William Barber’s, “Sweet Are the Uses of Adversity”: Federal Patronage of the Arts in the Great Depression (a complete citation appears at the end of this article). His title comes from Shakespeare’s, ‘As You like it’ and reads as follows: “Sweet are the uses of adversity/Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, /Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.” These words aptly describe the wealth of art and craftsmanship that arose from a program aimed at drawing on the talents and resources of a community of artists who, in today’s culture, would certainly be passed over in a search for solutions to our economic woes.

Barber cites the ‘Mexican Connection’ as he describes the inception of a work relief program for artists, conceived in the first hundred days of the Roosevelt administration. Artist and former Harvard classmate, George Biddle, prepared a memorandum for FDR, who was busy working out solutions for the country’s banking and manufacturing sectors. Biddle’s memo “reported that artists in Mexico had produced the greatest national school of mural painting since the Italian Renaissance’ and, though working at ‘plumber’s wages’, they had. “express[ed] on the walls of the government buildings the social ideals of the Mexican revolution.” He proposed a similar program for U.S. government buildings, using young artists, “eager to express their ideals in a permanent art form, […] convinced that our mural art with a little impetus can soon result, for the first time in our history, in a vital national expression” (Biddle, in Barber:236).

Under the president’s direction, Biddle set out to bring the program to life within the bureaucratic morass of the departments and under secretaries that typically stood in the way of this form of liberal policy implementation. His primary requirements for launching a successful program were: first-rank artists; assignment of wall space to express social ideals of the government and the people and; complete freedom of personal expression and technical execution.

Biddle had in mind a specific list of artists, among them: Thomas Hart Benton, Edward Laning, Reginald Marsh, Henry Varnum Poor, Boardman Robinson and Maurice Stern. He envisioned this core group of artists getting to work and creating a groundswell of public interest, with the help of the press, ‘liberal’ magazines and other organization devoted to the arts. His first obstacle was the civilian body created during the first Roosevelt administration in the early 20th century—the Fine Arts Commission. Tasked to oversee the ‘artistic merit’ of proposed government projects, the conservative commissioners saw little merit in the ‘modernism’ of the artists Biddle selected, or for their liberal social agenda. In the commission’s view, the mural project was “reactionary” and “unsound”. The project would have foundered on the administrative rocks of Washington’s politically-treacherous coast, except for the one key factor. Biddle was able to maneuver through the shoals of the larger national financial crisis, finding a way to have funds from a larger appropriation redirected to his small program. Just one-million dollars out of a 12-month emergency allocation of $400 million would be enough to put scores of artists to work, in the short term and provide proof-of-concept, in the longer range.

The man selected to run this project (Public Works of Art Project, or PWAP), was artist, Edward Bruce. According to Barber, “Bruce shared Biddle’s enthusiasms for promoting art with a distinctive American identity. There were fundamental differences in their approaches, however. Bruce was not attracted to the idea that public wall space should become a vehicle for social commentary.” Instead, Bruce wanted artists to assume the symbolic role of “spokesman for his community”, uniting Americans around a common cause and offering “powerful encouragement” through their work. “He preferred to see the national experience celebrated in ways that braced the country’s badly bruised morale. If things worked out the way he wished, government-sponsored art would educate and elevate popular tastes, thereby stimulating an increase in private demand for the artist’s product…he did not believe that painters and sculptors could expect government to be their principle patrons over the long term” (Barber:239).

The PWAP program began to ‘hire’ artists that same day, after funding was approved—on December 9, 1933. The job description was clear: encourage works that interpreted the American scene and retain the services of the most competent artists, not just the neediest. By the time the program ended in the fall of 1934 (end of the federal fiscal year), more than 3,700 artists had participated, producing nearly 16,000 items of art (McKinzie:27). A public event was planned at Washington’s Corcoran Gallery at the end of the program, to demonstrate the success of the program to the public. Censorship nevertheless, came into play here, as well. For certain paintings, like Paul Cadmus’, The Fleet’s In (right), it was pulled because it depicted of drunken sailors arm-in-arm with women of questionable reputation (Editor’s Note: This banned painting served as inspiration for choreographer, Jerome Robbins’s 1944 ballet, Fancy Free; and in the same year, the Broadway show, On the Town, with music by Leonard Bernstein . Most memorable from the theatrical hit: New York, New York [“…the Bronx is up but the Battery’s down”]). “Critics noted the absence of nudes, night club subjects, pretty women, aristocratic men and genteel houses. [Instead, there was a] preponderance of machinery: locomotives; steamships; workers and common subjects of village and farm life” (McKinzie:30). Because these works were paid for by public funds, at the end of the exhibition, Bruce freely presented paintings to the White House, various cabinet departments and to the House of representatives office building (Barber: 241).

With the end of the year-long PWAP program came a new burst of energy by Edward Bruce and the politicians (including the president) who believed in perpetuating the program in some form. In 1934, the Congress approved a department within the Treasury’s Procurement Division, called the Section of Fine Arts. Bruce was named its head and he set about to use the one-percent of federal building construction and renovation funds set aside for art decoration to further the recently-expired working artists’ program. Imagine in today’s political environment, a federally-baseddepartment such as this, with a committee formed to mitigate the conservative influence of the Fine Arts Commission, consisting of two members of the president’s cabinet, the National Planning Board chairman (the president’s uncle), an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, as well as architects, leading museum directors, artists and sculptors!

The newly-formed Section of Fine Arts was to open the field for competition to complete murals in many of the building around Washington, as well as ‘Section’ funding for buildings in other parts of the country. The already esteemed list of artists was expanded to include George Biddle, John Stewart Curry, Rockwell Kent, Leon Kroll, Eugene Savage, Gant Wood and sculptors Paul Manship and William Zorach. Many ultimately chose not to participate, citing possible bureaucratic interference. Ultimately, more than 1,100 building throughout the U.S., in 1,083 cities and towns received the attention of these and 1200 other artists. More than half their works appeared in post offices and many of us, today (like this author in younger years), stand beneath these expertly-rendered—but often forgotten or overlooked—murals, reflecting a time in history and a view of the role of the artist in our everyday live, that thrived from 1934-43. Next time you hold a Jefferson nickel in your hand, recall that it was designed by a Roosevelt-era artist, working as a part of Bruce’s, Section of Fine Arts program.

But the ‘Section’ project, as successful as it was, was overshadowed by the larger and much better known, Works Progress Administration (WPA) and Federal Art Program (FAP). Much more far-reaching that either the Public Works Art Project (`33 to`34), or the Section of Fine Arts mural and sculpture project (`34-`43), FAP was part of an omnibus spending bill launched under the Roosevelt Administration in 1935, to boldly accelerate the slowly-improving economy, as it emerged from the Great Depression. The program put millions to work, building dams, canals, roads and public buildings. He also approved Federal One, which consisted of the FAP, as well as theater, music and writing projects. Harry Hopkins, a former Roosevelt aide, headed the program, sharing the same aversion to the ‘dole’ that drove Biddle’s gestation of the ‘work relief program for artists’ in 1933.

Generously funded by the Congress, $3 million was allocated for the first six months of the project, allowing for the hire of 5,300 artists, artisans and craftspeople. WPA’s Hopkins turned to Holger Cahill, a New Jersey art collector and social theorist, to run the FAP. Cahill, a colorful figure, saw elements in the American culture of violence and vulgarity. He looked to art as a way of transcending the obscene into something beautiful (McKinzie:79). Cahill believed that patrons of the arts were still being held in the grip of European tastes and that, as a consequence, American artists had little opportunity to be understood and appreciated by their own nation. Hailing artists like John Sloan, George Luks and George Bellows for their, “rediscovery of the American scene” and “clear return to the interest of the average man” who had “brought the gusty vitality of city streets into the staid salons of the genteel tradition” (Cahill: 14-15).

Structured differently than previous arts programs, Cahill’s far-reaching vision was of an American cultural scene saved by government support and intervention, meaning that our cultural heritage would not die the same death, in the face of industrialization, as traditional crafts of Asia and India. He…”pledged that what had happened in Asian nations would not be repeated in the United States. It was altogether in keeping with this purpose that slightly more than half of those on the projects’ payrolls were “’craftsmen, workers in commercial and applied arts’, while slightly less than half were ‘working in the fine arts’” (Cahill, quoted in Barber: 247).

For several years, the FAP spearheaded the creation of and defined the foundation for future community arts education programs in the U.S. Within the FAP organization, there were several sections: art production, art instruction and art research. Mural painting and fine art paintings and prints continued to find their way into public building around the country; public art education was available for children and adults in community centers, principally in the West and South and nearly 1,000 artists were employed to conduct art research under the Index of American Design program, cataloging nearly 18,000 watercolor renderings of American decorative arts from the colonial period through the 19th century.

By 1939, internal divisions and a debate over the degree of control the government should exercise over the output and standards placed on artists and the increasing strain of responding to a mounting global crisis resulted in a decline of interest within the administration regarding the future of FAP. In that year the management of the program was turned over to the states. After 1941, many of these same artists and draftsmen began devoting their time to the war effort. Posters and placards, civil defense pamphlets and rousing military music all managed to keep thousands of artists, writers and musicians busy during the early years of the war. By 1943, WPA/FAP had lost its funding and the monies previously set aside for this unique program (a total of $35 million over 10 years) were redirected to the war effort.

“But, during that period, a total of 2,250 murals were placed in public building around the country (courthouses, hospitals, schools, libraries and even Ellis Island); 13,000 pieces of sculpture were positioned in such places as parks, housing projects and historic battlefields; more than 100,000 paintings were created and placed on loan to public institutions and; nearly 240,000 prints from 12,500 original designs were also placed in public venues” (Dows, quoted in Barber:249).

“The experience of federal patronage of the arts in the Great Depression left no lasting mark on American institutions, but at least one aspect of the legacy is memorable. Thanks to government support, a number of major contributors to the American art scene kept going through some dark days; among them were Jackson Pollock, Ben Shahn, William de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Philip Guston, [Stuart Davis] and Arshile Gorky” (Barber:254).

READERS’ ALERT! How you can help…

Today, nearly seventy years later, a new effort is underway to account for and catalogue the paintings, prints and murals that were produced during the period 1933-1943, under the Public Works of Art Project (`33-`34); The Section of Fine Arts (`34-`43); the Treasury Relief Act Project (TRAP,`35-`38, not mentioned in this article); and Works Progress Administration/Federal Art Project (`35-`43). The U.S. General Services Administration’s Fine Arts Program (GSA) and the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) are working together to locate, identify and recover lost portable works of art produced by artists through the New Deal era art programs of the 1930s and early 1940s.

When a new deal artwork is offered for sale and/or is suspected to be federal property, OIG should be notified. In conversation with program coordinators, Jennifer Gibson and Kathy Erikson, they explained that the notification can be made by anyone, including, but not limited to the Fine Arts Program, a private individual, a museum staff member, art dealer, appraiser or lawyer. The possessor of the work(s) is requested to maintain care and possession of the artwork until research about title is completed.

If the artwork is determined to be federal property, The GSA works with the possessor to return the work of art to federal custody, with the ultimate goal of having the artwork loaned to a qualified institution. Gibson points out that in some cases, works have been transferred with ownership of a commercial building or house and the owner might not be aware of the fact that art found in any given location still maintains government ties.

If you are aware of a New Deal work of art that may be federal property, please contact the GSA’s Fine Arts Program at wpa@gsa.gov or the office of the Inspector General at fraudnet@gsaig.gov. The OIG can make every effort to maintain the anonymity of those persons who provide information.

You may also write for more information to:

Fine Arts Program

Office of the Chief Architect

U.S. Government Services Administration

1800 F Street, NW

Washington, DC 20405

www.wpa@gsa.gov

By Richard Friswell, Executive Editor

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Bibliography:

Barber, William J., “Sweet Are the Uses of Adversity”: Federal Patronage of the Arts in the Great Depression. In Economic Engagement with Art, History of Political Economy, Sup. to Vol. 31, ed. by Crawford D.W. Goodwin & Neil De Marchi. Durham, NC and London: Duke Univ. Press, 1999.

Cahill, Holger, New Horizons in American Art, New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1936.

Dows, Olin, The New Deal’s Treasury Art Program. In New Deal Art Projects: An Anthology of Memoirs, ed. by Francis V. O’Connor. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institute, 1972.

McKinzie, Richard D., The New Deal for Artists. Princeton, NJ: Prineton Univ. Press, 1973.