Federal Art Project
Encyclopedia
The Federal Art Project (FAP) was the visual arts
arm of the Great Depression
-era New Deal
Works Progress 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.
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
).
Visual arts
The visual arts are art forms that create works which are primarily visual in nature, such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, and often modern visual arts and architecture...
arm of the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
-era New Deal
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...
Works Progress Administration
Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration was the largest and most ambitious New Deal agency, employing millions of unskilled workers to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads, and operated large arts, drama, media, and literacy projects...
Federal One
Federal One
Federal Project Number One was the collective name for a group of projects under the Work Projects Administration, a New Deal program in the United States. The five elements of the program were:*Mathematical Tables Project*Harry Hopkins-External links:...
program in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. 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
Public art
The term public art properly refers to works of art in any media that have been planned and executed with the specific intention of being sited or staged in the physical public domain, usually outside and accessible to all...
in the country.
The program made no distinction between representational
Representation (arts)
Representation is the use of signs that stand in for and take the place of something else. It is through representation that people organize the world and reality through the act of naming its elements...
and nonrepresentational art. Abstraction
Abstract art
Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...
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
Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock , known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, and...
before their work could earn them income.
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
Section of Painting and Sculpture
The Treasury Section of Painting and Sculpture , commonly known as "the Section," was established in 1934 and administered by the Procurement Division of the United States Department of the Treasury....
and the Public Works of Art Project
Public Works of Art Project
The Public Works of Art Project was a program to employ artists, as part of the New Deal, during the Great Depression. It was the first such program, running from December 1933 to June 1934...
(both of which, unlike the WPA-operated FAP, were operated by the U.S. Department of the Treasury
United States Department of the Treasury
The Department of the Treasury is an executive department and the treasury of the United States federal government. It was established by an Act of Congress in 1789 to manage government revenue...
).
Notable artists
Some of the well-known artists supported by the project:- Berenice AbbottBerenice AbbottBerenice Abbott , born Bernice Abbott, was an American photographer best known for her black-and-white photography of New York City architecture and urban design of the 1930s.-Youth:...
- William AbbensethWilliam AbbensethWilliam Abbenseth was an American photographer known for his black and white photographs of San Francisco architecture.-Personal life & education:William Abbenseth was born in New York, New York in 1898...
- Charles AlstonCharles AlstonCharles Henry Alston was an African-American painter, sculptor, illustrator, muralist and teacher who lived and worked in the New York City neighborhood of Harlem. Alston was active in the Harlem Renaissance; Alston was the first African American supervisor for the Works Progress Administration's...
- William BaziotesWilliam BaziotesWilliam Baziotes was an American painter influenced by Surrealism and was a contributor to Abstract Expressionism.-Life and career:...
- Romare BeardenRomare BeardenRomare Bearden was an African American artist and writer. He worked in several media including cartoons, oils, and collage.-Education:...
- Thomas Hart BentonThomas Hart Benton (painter)Thomas Hart Benton was an American painter and muralist. Along with Grant Wood and John Steuart Curry, he was at the forefront of the Regionalist art movement. His fluid, almost sculpted paintings showed everyday scenes of life in the United States...
- Aaron BerkmanAaron BerkmanAaron Berkman was an American Social Realist and Modern painter who was involved in the Federal Art Project, which was the visual arts arm of the Great Depression-era New Deal. Although born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1900, he later moved to New York City in 1929.- Biography :Aaron Berkman was...
- Leon BibelLeon BibelLeon Bibel was an American painter and printmaker during the Great Depression. His themes were the social condition of workers and the politics of protest and war, although cityscapes and landscapes were included among his works. He later developed works in wood of especially Jewish themes...
- Samuel BookatzSamuel BookatzSamuel Bookatz was a prolific painter who defied the demands of his blue collar, Orthodox Jewish upbringing to study art in the United States and Europe...
- Dorr BothwellDorr BothwellDorr Hodgson Bothwell was an American artist, designer, educator, and world-traveller. She was born in San Francisco, California. She began her art career at the California School of Fine Arts in 1921, under the tutelage of Gottardo Piazzoni and Rudolf Schaeffer.- Travels :Bothwell's travels...
- Flávio Cabral
- Eleanor CoenEleanor CoenEleanor Coen established her art career during the great depression. In the Works Progress Administration Federal Arts Project she and her husband Max Kahn helped forge a tradition of twentieth century color lithography and painting. She was born in 1916 in Normal, Illinois...
- Francis CrissFrancis CrissFrancis Hyman Criss was an American painter. Criss's style is associated with the American Precisionists like Charles Demuth and his friend Charles Sheeler.Criss was born in London and immigrated with his family at age 4...
- Rinaldo CuneoRinaldo CuneoRinaldo Cuneo , dubbed the Painter of San Francisco, was an American artist known for his landscape paintings and murals.-Early life and education:...
- John Steuart CurryJohn Steuart CurryJohn Steuart Curry was an American painter whose career spanned from 1924 until his death. He was noted for his paintings depicting life in his home state, Kansas...
- (His murals were funded by the Treasury Department's Section of Painting and SculptureSection of Painting and SculptureThe Treasury Section of Painting and Sculpture , commonly known as "the Section," was established in 1934 and administered by the Procurement Division of the United States Department of the Treasury....
(later known as The Section of Fine Arts) and not the WPA) - Stuart DavisStuart Davis (painter)Stuart Davis , was an early American modernist painter. He was well known for his jazz influenced, proto pop art paintings of the 1940s and 1950s, bold, brash, and colorful as well as his ashcan pictures in the early years of the 20th century.-Biography:He was born in Philadelphia to Edward Wyatt...
- Burgoyne DillerBurgoyne DillerBurgoyne A. Diller was an American abstract painter. Many of his best-known works are characterized by orthogonal geometric forms that reflect his strong interest in the De Stijl movement and the work of Piet Mondrian in particular...
- Philip EvergoodPhilip EvergoodPhilip Howard Francis Dixon Evergood was an American painter, etcher, lithographer, sculptor, illustrator and writer. He was particularly active during the Depression and World War II era.-Life:...
- Claire FalkensteinClaire FalkensteinClaire Falkenstein was an American sculptor, painter, printmaker, jewelry designer, and teacher, most renowned for her often large-scale abstract metal and glass public sculptures.-Early life and education:...
- Lee GatchLee GatchLee Gatch , an American artist, was born in a rural community near Baltimore. He graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art in the early 1920s and then studied in Europe for a few years before returning to the United States...
- Arshile GorkyArshile GorkyArshile Gorky was an Armenian-born American painter who had a seminal influence on Abstract Expressionism. As such, his works were often speculated to have been informed by the suffering and loss he experienced of the Armenian genocide.-Early life:...
- Adolph GottliebAdolph GottliebAdolph Gottlieb was an American abstract expressionist painter, sculptor and graphic artist.-Biography:Gottlieb was born in New York to Jewish parents. From 1920-1921 he studied at the Art Students League of New York, after which he traveled in France and Germany for a year...
- Harry GottliebHarry GottliebHarry Gottlieb was a painter, screen printer, lithographer, and educator based in New York City.-Biography:Harry Gottlieb was born in Bucharest, Romania in 1895. He immigrated to America in 1907, and his family settled in Minneapolis....
- William GropperWilliam GropperWilliam Victor "Bill" Gropper , was a U.S. cartoonist, painter, lithographer, and muralist. A committed radical, Gropper is best known for the political work which he contributed to such left wing publications as The Revolutionary Age, The Liberator, The New Masses, The Worker, and The Morning...
- Philip GustonPhilip GustonPhilip Guston was a notable painter and printmaker in the New York School, which included many of the Abstract expressionists, such as Jackson Pollock and Willem De Kooning...
- Marsden HartleyMarsden HartleyMarsden Hartley was an American Modernist painter, poet, and essayist.-Early life and education:Hartley was born in Lewiston, Maine, where his English parents had settled. He was the youngest of nine children. His mother died when he was eight, and his father remarried four years later to Martha...
- Donal HordDonal HordDonal Hord , an American sculptor, was born Donald Horr in Prentice, Wisconsin. His parents divorced when he was about 6 years old; and around that time his mother changed his name, taking the second "d" from "Donald" and substituting it for the second "r" in "Horr", thus creating the name Donal...
- Jacob KainenJacob KainenJacob Kainen was an American painter and printmaker. He is also known as an art historian, writingbooks on John Baptist Jackson and the etchings of Canaletto...
- Morris KantorMorris KantorMorris Kantor was a Russian-born American painter based in the New York City area. Born in Minsk in 1896, Kantor was brought to the United States as a child in 1906. He made his home in West Nyack, New York for much of his life, and died there in 1974...
- Gwendolyn KnightGwendolyn KnightGwendolyn Clarine Knight was an African American artist from Barbados, in the West Indies.Gwendolyn Knight painted throughout her life, but did not start seriously exhibiting her work until the 1970s. Her first retrospective when she was nearly eighty years old...
- Albert KotinAlbert KotinAlbert Kotin belonged to the early generation of New York School Abstract Expressionist artists whose artistic innovation by the 1950s had been recognized across the Atlantic, including Paris...
- Lee KrasnerLee KrasnerLee Krasner was an influential abstract expressionist painter in the second half of the 20th century. On October 25, 1945, she married artist Jackson Pollock, who was also influential in the Abstract Expressionism movement....
- Jacob LawrenceJacob LawrenceJacob Lawrence was an American painter; he was married to fellow artist Gwendolyn Knight. Lawrence referred to his style as "dynamic cubism", though by his own account the primary influence was not so much French art as the shapes and colors of Harlem.Lawrence is among the best-known twentieth...
- Tom LeaThomas C. Lea, IIIThomas Calloway "Tom" Lea, III was a noted American muralist, illustrator, artist, war correspondent, novelist, and historian....
- Norman LewisNorman LewisNorman Lewis was a prolific British writer best known for his travel writing. Though not widely known, "Norman Lewis is one of the best writers, not of any particular decade, but of our century", according to Graham Greene....
- Abraham LishinskyAbraham LishinskyAbraham Lishinsky is an American artist of the 20th Century, a painter and playwright, best known for seven murals completed for the federally funded agencies of the New Deal programs of the 1930s and 1940s....
- Michael LoewMichael LoewMichael Loew was an American Abstract Expressionist artist who was born in New York City.In the late 1920s, Loew studied at the Art Students League with the Ashcan School and was a recipient of a Sadie A. May Fellowship which allowed Loew to continue his studies in France...
- Conrad Marca-RelliConrad Marca-RelliConrad Marca-Relli was an American artist who belonged to the early generation of New York School Abstract Expressionist artists whose artistic innovation by the 1950s had been recognized across the Atlantic, including Paris...
- John MarinJohn MarinJohn Marin was an early American modernist artist. He is known for his abstract landscapes and watercolors.-Biography:...
- Jan MatulkaJan MatulkaJan Matulka was a Czech-American modern artist originally from Bohemia. Matulka's style would range from Abstract expressionism to landscapes, sometimes in the same day.-Early life:...
- Paul MeltsnerPaul MeltsnerPaul Raphael Meltsner was an American artist who was widely recognized for his WPA era paintings and lithographs, and who was later known for his iconic portraits of celebrities in the performing arts.-Education and training:...
- Jo MoraJo MoraJoseph Jacinto "Jo" Mora was an Uruguayan-born American cartoonist, illustrator and cowboy, who lived with the Hopi and wrote extensively about his experiences in California. He was an artist-historian, sculptor, painter, photographer, illustrator, muralist and author...
- Carl Morris
- Louise Berliawsky NevelsonLouise Berliawsky NevelsonLouise Nevelson was an American sculptor known for her monumental, monochromatic, wooden wall pieces and outdoor sculptures. Born in Czarist Russia, she emigrated with her family to the United States in the early 20th century when she was three years old. Nevelson learned English at school, as she...
- Frank NuderscherFrank NuderscherFrank Bernard Nuderscher was an American illustrator, muralist, and painter of the American Impressionism style. He was called the "dean of St. Louis artists" for his leadership in the Missouri art community....
- Charles PollockCharles PollockCharles Cecil Pollock was an American painter and eldest brother of Jackson Pollock. His parents were Stella May McClure and LeRoy Pollock, his father, who born McCoy, had taken the surname of his parents' neighbours who adopted him after both his own parents died within a year of each...
- Jackson PollockJackson PollockPaul Jackson Pollock , known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, and...
- Ad ReinhardtAd ReinhardtAdolph Frederick Reinhardt was an Abstract painter active in New York beginning in the 1930s and continuing through the 1960s. He was a member of the American Abstract Artists and was a part of the movement centered around the Betty Parsons Gallery that became known as Abstract Expressionism...
- Daniel RhodesDaniel RhodesDaniel Rhodes was an American ceramic artist, sculptor, author and educator. During the twenty-five years that he was on the faculty at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, in Alfred, New York , he built an international reputation as a potter, sculptor and authority on...
- Diego RiveraDiego RiveraDiego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez was a prominent Mexican painter born in Guanajuato, Guanajuato, an active communist, and husband of Frida Kahlo . His large wall works in fresco helped establish the Mexican Mural Movement in...
- Mark RothkoMark RothkoMark Rothko, born Marcus Rothkowitz , was a Russian-born American painter. He is classified as an abstract expressionist, although he himself rejected this label, and even resisted classification as an "abstract painter".- Childhood :Mark Rothko was born in Dvinsk, Vitebsk Province, Russian...
- William B. RoweWilliam B. RoweWilliam Bentley Rowe was an American artist and art educator who worked primarily in New York and New Mexico. He was a versatile artist who used a wide range of mediums with great success. He also executed several large murals. Rowe was a leading member of the Art Institute of Buffalo. Other...
- Augusta SavageAugusta SavageAugusta Savage, born Augusta Christine Fells was an African-American sculptor associated with the Harlem Renaissance. She was also a teacher and her studio was important to the careers of a rising generation of artists who would become nationally known...
- Louis SchankerLouis SchankerLouis Schanker was an American abstract artist born in 1903. He grew up in an orthodox Jewish environment in the Bronx, New York. His parents were of Romanian descent...
- Georgette SeabrookeGeorgette SeabrookeGeorgette Seabrooke , is an American muralist, artist, illustrator, art therapist and educator.-Biography:...
- Ben ShahnBen ShahnBen Shahn was a Lithuanian-born American artist. He is best known for his works of social realism, his left-wing political views, and his series of lectures published as The Shape of Content.-Biography:...
- Harry ShoulbergHarry ShoulbergHarry Shoulberg was an American expressionist painter.He was known to be among the early group of WPA artists working in the screen print medium, as well as oil.-Biography:...
- David Siqueiros
- John Sloan
- William SommerWilliam SommerWilliam Sommer was an American Modernist painter.William Sommer was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1867. He was largely self-taught, but received instruction early on from artist and commercial lithographer Julius Melchers...
- Isaac SoyerIsaac SoyerIsaac Soyer was a social realist painter and often portrayed working-class people of New York City in his paintings.-Biography:...
- Moses SoyerMoses Soyer-Biography:Soyer was born in Borisoglebsk, Russia in 1899. His father was a Hebrew scholar, writer and teacher. His family emigrated to the USA in 1912. Soyer's brothers, Raphael and Isaac were also painters...
- Raphael SoyerRaphael SoyerRaphael Soyer was a Russian-born American painter, draftsman, and printmaker. Soyer was referred to as an American scene painter...
- Dox ThrashDox ThrashDox Thrash was an African-American artist.-Early life:He was born in Griffin, Georgia, on March 22, 1893. He was the second of four children in his family. Thrash left home at the age of fifteen in search of work up north...
- Alton TobeyAlton TobeyAlton Stanley Tobey , the American artist, was a painter, historical artist, muralist, portraitist, illustrator, and teacher of art.-Biography:...
- Mark TobeyMark TobeyMark George Tobey was an American abstract expressionist painter, born in Centerville, Wisconsin. Widely recognized throughout the United States and Europe, Tobey is the most noted among the "mystical painters of the Northwest." Senior in age and experience, Tobey had a strong influence on the...
- Grant WoodGrant WoodGrant DeVolson Wood was an American painter, born four miles east of Anamosa, Iowa. He is best known for his paintings depicting the rural American Midwest, particularly the painting American Gothic, an iconic image of the 20th century.- Life and career :His family moved to Cedar Rapids after his...
- William ZorachWilliam ZorachWilliam Zorach was a Lithuanian-born American sculptor, painter, printmaker, and writer. He won the Logan Medal of the arts.-Life and career:...
- Willem de KooningWillem de KooningWillem de Kooning was a Dutch American abstract expressionist artist who was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands....
and Santiago Martínez DelgadoSantiago Martínez DelgadoSantiago Martínez Delgado was a Colombian painter, sculptor, art historian and writer. He established a reputation as a prominent muralist during the 1940s and is also known for his watercolors, oil paintings, illustrations and woodcarvings....
were also employed by the FAP temporarily but were unable to stay because they were not U.S. citizensUnited States nationality lawArticle I, section 8, clause 4 of the United States Constitution expressly gives the United States Congress the power to establish a uniform rule of naturalization. The Immigration and Naturalization Act sets forth the legal requirements for the acquisition of, and divestiture from, citizenship of...
at the time.
See also
- List of Works Progress Administration artists
- Section of Painting and SculptureSection of Painting and SculptureThe Treasury Section of Painting and Sculpture , commonly known as "the Section," was established in 1934 and administered by the Procurement Division of the United States Department of the Treasury....
- Public Works of Art ProjectPublic Works of Art ProjectThe Public Works of Art Project was a program to employ artists, as part of the New Deal, during the Great Depression. It was the first such program, running from December 1933 to June 1934...
External links
- Exhibition: "1934: A New Deal for Artists". - Smithsonian American Art MuseumSmithsonian American Art MuseumThe Smithsonian American Art Museum is a museum in Washington, D.C. with an extensive collection of American art.Part of the Smithsonian Institution, the museum has a broad variety of American art that covers all regions and art movements found in the United States...
. - Photographs by Federal Art Project photographers from the collections of the Museum of the City of New York
- 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
- Pine Tree in Michigan by Joseph Sparks for the Detroit Federal Art Project, Grand Valley State University Digital Collections