Federal Art Project of Works Progress Admin
Started: 1934
Ended: 1943
"The Project was terribly important. It gave us enough to live on and we could paint what we wanted. It was terrific largely because of its director, Burgoyne Diller. I had to resign after a year because I was an alien, but even in that short time, I changed my attitude toward being an artist. Instead of doing odd jobs and painting on the side, I painted and did odd jobs on the side. My life was the same, but I had a different view of it. I gave up the idea of first making a fortune and then painting in my old age."
Summary of Federal Art Project of Works Progress Admin
During its years of operation, the government-funded Federal Art Project (FAP) of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) hired hundreds of artists who collectively created more than 100,000 paintings and murals and over 18,000 sculptures to be found in municipal buildings, schools, and hospitals in all of the 48 states. Additionally, nearly 100 community art centers throughout the country provided art classes for children and developing artists. The FAP was part of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal during the Great Depression, in which he sought to put as many unemployed Americans back to work as possible and to buoy morale of the citizens. Some of the 20th century's greatest visual artists were employed by the FAP, along with many nascent Abstract Expressionists.
Key Ideas
Beginnings:
In the mid 1930s, the United States remained at the center of a global economic depression. In an effort to provide economic relief to citizens who were having trouble finding work President Franklin Delano Roosevelt established the Works Progress Administration. Several months later, a subdivision of the WPA called the Federal Art Project was developed in order to assist struggling artists.
The Most Important Art in Federal Art Project of Works Progress Admin | |
  | Aerial Map (1935-37)Artist: Arshile Gorky Artwork description & Analysis: Aerial Map is one of two surviving murals that Gorky painted for Newark Airport's Administration Building. Originally ten murals comprised the cycle, entitled Aviation: Evolution of Forms under Aerodynamic Limitations. Drawing on his study of Pablo Picasso and Fernand Leger, Gorky's composition relies on bold colors and simple, superimposed shapes to convey a sense of the terrain that one would see from the air or perhaps the shape of the airport itself. The short black dashes and dots in the white shape at the center of the canvas, which roughly resembles the outline of the United States, call to mind flight routes that one would map out. While Gorky's mural was controversial at the time because of its abstract nature, Gorky insisted that an art of the future was necessary to depict the transportation of the future. Oil on canvas - Newark Museum |
 Artwork Images | Untitled (The Subway) (1937)Artist: Mark Rothko Artwork description & Analysis: Here, Mark Rothko depicts the eerily quiet and still interior of a subway station. The space is punctuated by evenly spaced columns that recede quickly into the background. The people depicted do not interact or speak with one another. The women on the bench, with their fancy hats and pointy shoes, are completely self-involved. The man who stands near the platform edge practically melds with the column he stands near. Rothko thus captures the isolation and loneliness that can befall one in a big city. Oil on canvas - Private Collection |
 Artwork Images | Cotton Pickers (c.1935)Artist: Jackson Pollock Artwork description & Analysis: Few of Pollock's paintings that he created for the FAP survived, and those that do, like Cotton Pickers, have fairly traditional subject matter. Here, Pollock depicts the laborers, shielded from the sun in large hats and long sleeves, doing the back-breaking work of picking cotton. Pollock presents the plight of the workers in a sympathetic light. Solidarity with other impoverished workers was a staple of much WPA work. Oil on canvas - The Albright-Knox Gallery |
More Federal Art Project of Works Progress Admin Artwork and Analysis:
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Edited and published by The Art Story Contributors
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First published on 19 Sep 2018. Updated and modified regularly. 
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