August 2, 2024–April 13, 2025
Gallery 235 and the Sidney S. and Sadie M. Cohen Gallery 234
The Work of Art, The Federal Art Project, 1936-1943
During the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal initiated a series of nationwide support programs for the arts. The largest program, the Federal Art Project (FAP) of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), put more than 10,000 artists to work. Their art, in turn, decorated municipal spaces, circulated through exhibitions, and was distributed to institutions across the United States. These galleries present highlights from the allocation of 256 prints, drawings, watercolors, and paintings that FAP administrators sent to the Saint Louis Art Museum in 1943 when the program ended.
The FAP sought to broaden opportunities to create and encounter art. Funding supported artists active in many different communities, some of whom had historically not received such assistance. The Museum’s allocation includes significant works by Asian American, Black, female-identifying, and immigrant artists. Within the FAP, artists pursued their own ideas about making art, enabling them to share their personal viewpoints and experiences.
Between 1935 and 1942, the FAP opened offices throughout the United States. The works in this exhibition are arranged by their place of production to offer a perspective on the country’s multifaceted artistic landscape. Some cities are represented in depth, while smaller groupings demonstrate the richness of others. These proportions reflect the makeup of the Museum’s allocation. From the vantage of St. Louis, the exhibition celebrates the wide-ranging power of art to take root in individuals’ lives and contribute to the vitality of communities.
NEW YORK CITY
William H. Johnson
American, 1901–1970
Girl Seated, 1939 or 1940
tempera on brown paper
This model sat before William H. Johnson at a moment of reinvention in his artistic career. He had painted mostly landscapes while living in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. Upon returning to New York City in 1938, he joined the FAP and received an assignment to teach children’s classes at the Harlem Community Art Center. Inspired by this experience, Johnson made over 100 drawings, including this one, of students, professional models, and fellow staff members. He experimented with flat shapes, patterned designs, and brilliant colors to form a new visual language, distinctly modern in its simplicity and directness.
Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration 360:1943
CHICAGO
The Federal Art Project (FAP) in Illinois supported nearly 800 artists from 1935 to 1943. Many of them were employed by the Easel Division in Chicago. To earn a monthly stipend of $94 (around $2,000 today), an artist needed to work 30 hours minimum per week and produce at least one painting every four to six weeks. The FAP provided all the necessary art supplies as well as shared studio spaces.
The FAP funded additional initiatives across Chicago, including the South Side Community Art Center, which opened in 1940. As a civic space dedicated to the needs of its immediate neighborhood, Black Chicago artists led its founding and made up its faculty. Today, it has the distinction of being the only community art center of this kind still operating.
CHICAGO
Eldzier Cortor
American, 1916–2015
The Eviction, about 1939–40
oil on canvas
A woman carefully cradles a potted plant, her belongings in bags at her feet. Thousands of Chicagoans were evicted from their homes during the 1930s due to skyrocketing unemployment rates, which reached as high as 40 percent among Black workers. Despite her dire situation, she stands confidently, ready to move forward with determination. Eldzier Cortor drew a visual contrast between her organic, upright form and the angular, jagged shapes of the city. Cortor’s early paintings centered on daily life in his Chicago neighborhood, where he helped establish the South Side Community Art Center.
Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration 353:1943
CHICAGO
Fred Hollingsworth
American, 1891–1961
The South Side Religious Tent, Open Air, 1939
watercolor and gouache over graphite
Fred Hollingsworth presents a feast for the senses: a wall of brightly colored stained glass dazzles the eyes, barbeque smoke fills the air, and gospel music plays from a loudspeaker. The scene likely depicts the All Nations Pentecostal Church, located in Chicago’s South Side.
Born in Louisiana, Hollingsworth was among the six million African Americans who joined the Great Migration from the rural South to the urban North. He moved to Chicago by 1930, where he worked primarily as a laborer. From 1938 to 1942, he was employed by the FAP’s Easel Division. A self-taught artist, he captured the energy and vitality of his religious community.
Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration 359:1943
To hear more about the All Nations Pentecostal Church from curator Amy Torbert, scan the QR code or visit: slam.org/The-Work-of-Art.
CHICAGO
Charles Davis
American, 1910–1963
Nocturne to Victoria, 1938
oil on canvas
Mists swirl around the turrets of an imaginary construction. Nocturne to Victoria demonstrates the freedom that FAP support gave artists to experiment with technique. Charles Davis, pictured below, layered paint with glazes of oil and varnish to give a craggy texture to the crumbling structure. In music and poetry, nocturnes are pensive compositions, evocative of the ending of one day and the transition to the next. The painting’s title invites viewers to consider the decay of the old world and the struggle to build a new one.
Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration 356:1943
Charles Davis, 1940; Library of Congress, Harmon Foundation, Inc. Records MSS51615
CHICAGO
Myron Kozman
American, 1916–2002
Abstraction #202, 1940
Abstraction #208, 1941
color screenprint (direct resist stencil)
A riot of colors, shapes, and textures fills these two sheets. Myron Kozman added “UAA 90” after his signature to indicate his membership in the United American Artists Union. Its national network helped Kozman connect with artists in New York City who had adopted screenprinting as a fine art medium, inspired by poster designs (see image).
A child of Russian Jewish immigrants, Kozman experimented with this new technique while studying at Chicago’s Institute of Design. The school’s founder, László Moholy-Nagy, encouraged students to strive for “vision in motion” by designing complex interrelationships of shapes and layering blocks of color to achieve a transparent effect. Kozman later taught in St. Louis at Webster and Lindenwood Universities.
Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration 202:1943; 201:1943
Richard Floethe, American, 1901–1988; Regional Poster Exhibition. Federal Art Gallery, New York, 1939; silkscreen; Library of Congress, Work Projects Administration Poster Collection LC-USZC2-935
CHICAGO
Charles Sebree
American, 1912–1985
Woman and Lemons, 1939
watercolor over graphite
This woman’s expressive eyes and faraway gaze invite us to contemplate her thoughts. Delicate color harmonies and dark outlines are characteristic of Charles Sebree’s works. Born in Kentucky, he took classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the early 1930s. While working for the FAP from 1936 to 1939, he forged relationships with mentors such as choreographer Katherine Dunham and philosopher Alain Locke. These connections laid the foundation for Sebree’s multifaceted career as a painter, set and costume designer, and playwright within a community of other gay, Black artists and intellectuals.
Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration 363:1943
NEW YORK CITY
Emil Ganso
American (born Germany), 1895–1941
Spring, Ulster County, 1936
hard- and soft-ground etching, aquatint, drypoint, and roulette
A sunburst breaks through clouds, illuminating the small village of Woodstock, New York. Emil Ganso regularly spent summers in its artists’ colony, where he ran a small printing studio. Unlike many FAP artists, Ganso’s career was well established when he joined the Graphic Arts Division from 1935 to 1937. He had immigrated to New York City in 1912 and initially supported himself as a baker. He later became a prolific printmaker with expertise in every major technique. Critics praised his etchings, such as this one, for their fine-tuned balance of light and dark tones and their “freshness, vigor, and atmosphere.”
Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration 279:1943
NEW YORK CITY
Chuzo Tamotzu
American (born Japan), 1891–1975
Drinking Water, about 1937
crayon lithograph, with scraped highlights
Two curious mules seek out a water trough within a landscape of energetic, gestural marks. Chuzo Tamotzu used a lithographic crayon and a scraping tool to mimic ink washes, recalling his study of ink paintings, or sumi-e, in his native Japan. He immigrated to the United States in 1920 and joined New York City’s FAP in 1935 as one of its first artists. His employment ended in 1937, when American citizenship became a requirement. As Tamotzu later lamented, he was “given the pink slip,” since Japanese immigrants were prohibited from becoming naturalized citizens until 1952.
Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration 264:1943
NEW YORK CITY
Ida Abelman
American, 1908–2002
Via Northwestern, 1939
crayon and tusche lithograph, with scraped highlights
Fragments of a midwestern landscape fly by, as if viewed from a train window. Ida Abelman presented her recollections of traveling via the North Western Railroad from her home in New York City to Sioux City, Iowa. The FAP sent her there to teach at its newly opened community art center, where she gave talks and demonstrations on lithography (see image). Most of her work took the form of political lithographs depicting the experiences of the urban poor, among whom she counted herself as the child of Russian Jewish immigrants.
Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration 149:1943
Ida Abelman giving a lecture on lithography at the Sioux City Art Center, November 1938; Source: Des Moines Register, November 20, 1938
NEW YORK CITY
Selma Day
American, 1907–1994
Mural Study, 1936 or 1937
oil on panel
“Little boy blue, / Come blow your horn, / The sheep’s in the meadow, / The cow’s in the corn.” Selma Day combined elements of this nursery rhyme in a mural design intended for the Harlem Hospital. In late 1937, she covered the walls of its children’s ward with scenes from Mother Goose rhymes (see image). Day was one of 36 painters who decorated the new hospital wing with murals, the first major commission awarded by the FAP to African American artists. A native New Yorker, Day worked as a commercial artist in advertising, followed by careers in marketing and interior design.
Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration 357:1943
Selma Day working on mural, January 1, 1938; gelatin silver print; New York Public Library, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division b15591219
NEW YORK CITY
Beatrice Mandelman
American, 1912–1998
Timbering, about 1939
crayon and tusche lithograph, with scraped highlights and wiping
Two men work deep underground on the dangerous yet essential task of timbering, or constructing and reinforcing a mine’s wooden tunnel. Beatrice Mandelman printed this highly textured lithograph on the Graphic Arts Division printing presses in New York City. Its subject matter recalls the months she spent in 1938 teaching at the newly opened, FAP-supported community art center in the mining community of Butte, Montana. Born to Jewish immigrant parents from whom she learned progressive values, Mandelman embraced printmaking as a means of raising awareness of political and social issues.
Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration 217:1943
NEW YORK CITY
Blanche Grambs
American, 1916–2010
Design: Steel, 1937
hard-ground etching with aquatint
A steel mill looms menacingly, nearly crowding out the delicate, interwoven gravestones and homes huddled in the background. Blanche Grambs, pictured below, exploited aquatint’s rough, grainy quality to its full potential to make the mill appear dirty and pockmarked. In 1936, while working for the FAP’s Graphic Arts Division in New York City, she visited Lansford, in northeastern Pennsylvania, whose coal mines fed the steel industry. The prints she made in response are among the strongest statements of solidarity between workers and unionized artists, such as herself.
Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration 192:1943
E. M. Bofinger; associated with Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration, Washington, DC, active 1935–1943; Blanche Grambs at work, 1939; gelatin silver print; 8 1/4 x 10 1/4 inches; Smithsonian Institution, Archives of American Art, Federal Art Project, Photographic Division Collection 2129
NEW YORK CITY
Fred Becker
American, 1913–2004
Elevated Station, 1936
wood engraving
Delicate lines transform an elevated train station into intricate patterns. Fred Becker carved this wood engraving while sitting in a diner in New York’s Greenwich Village. He recalled that during the bitterly cold winter of 1936, he made prints in “cafeterias, libraries, and any place that was warm,” since his apartment lacked reliable heat. Becker later reflected that the FAP’s Graphic Art Division “provided me not only with sustenance but an education.” This experience informed his establishment of the print department at Washington University in St. Louis, where he taught from 1948 to 1968.
Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration 281:1943
NEW YORK CITY
Chet La More
American, 1908–1980
Generals, 1939
color woodcut printed in black and red from two blocks
Five men glare at one another, their faces made grotesque through marks gouged into a block of wood. Chet La More created this woodcut one month after the outbreak of World War II in Europe. He abstracted the specifics of these generals’ uniforms to make a universal statement condemning leaders who dragged their people into wars. La More drew inspiration from caricatures by George Grosz that satirized German generals during World War I (see image). La More’s connections to relatives in Denmark, which was in the midst of Nazi occupation, may have intensified his antiwar statement.
Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration 205:1943
George Grosz, German, 1893–1959; printed by Hermann Birkholz, Berlin; published by Malik-Verlag, Berlin; God with Us (Gott mit uns) from the portfolio God with Us (Gott mit uns), 1919, published 1920; offset lithograph, image (irreg.): 11 9/16 x 16 7/8 inches, sheet: 15 7/16 x 18 7/8 inches; Museum of Modern Art, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Fund 484.1949
NEW YORK
Boris Gorelick
American (born Russia), 1911–1984
Flood, 1937
crayon and tusche lithograph, with scraping, splattering, and wiping
Distorted, desperate figures reach for each other in a cityscape torn apart by rushing waters. Boris Gorelick may have created this print in response to the devastating flood of January 1937, when the Ohio River inundated communities from Pittsburgh to Cairo, Illinois. A Russian Jewish immigrant, Gorelick frequently employed Surrealist techniques of montage and fragmentation in his prints to raise consciousness about social, economic, or ecological crises. In addition to being one of the original members of the FAP’s New York lithography workshop, Gorelick also painted murals and established the Phoenix Art Center in Arizona.
Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration 188:1943
NEW YORK CITY
New York City hosted the largest Federal Art Project (FAP)—so large, in fact, that it was administered as its own division, separate from New York State. The Graphic Arts Division supported many artistic styles and print mediums. Printmakers first submitted a drawing for approval and then received materials to create their print at home or in the workshop. An edition, generally numbering 25 prints, would then be produced on the FAP presses.
Aspects of the New York City FAP were effectively segregated by race, as few African American artists worked within the easel, mural, or graphic arts divisions. Partially in response to this discrimination, members of Harlem’s vibrant artistic community established the Harlem Community Art Center. Opened in 1937 with FAP support, it offered free art classes and nurtured a new generation of Black professional artists.
SAN FRANCISCO
Jennie Lewis
American, 1892–1944
Mission Hills, San Francisco, 1939
crayon lithograph with watercolor (hand coloring)
Looking out across the neighborhoods of San Francisco, Jennie Lewis dissolved the peaks of steeples and houses into a soft haze across the city. The hand-applied watercolor transforms the scene into a surreal landscape with a purple sky. Critics of the period praised Lewis’s work as “primitive” or “naive,” highlighting the directness and legibility of her approach. With the support of FAP head Holger Cahill, the Museum of Modern Art in New York featured Lewis’s prints in a one-woman show in 1940.
Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration 212:1943
SAN FRANCISCO
Violet Nakashima
American, born 1916
Solitary Horse, 1940 or 1941
crayon and tusche lithograph
Violet Nakashima conveyed the peace and quiet of a horse nestled into a lush, wooded field with a liquid blur that demonstrates the flexibility of lithography. Her subtle gradations in tone suggest an ink drawing, with careful attention paid to the use of paper to create soft highlights across the composition. Nakashima, pictured below, also participated in a project to capture the beauty of the local landscape from a more educational angle, producing drawings shown in an exhibition and published as the Pictorial History of the Redwoods (1937).
Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration 233:1943
Violet Nakashima at work, from Pictorial History of Redwoods, Concluding Master Report, State Parks Redwoods, Work Number 3873, 1937; gelatin silver print; History San Jose’s Research Library & Archives, Sempervirens Club Records 1979-2628-72
SAN FRANCISCO
David P. Chun
American, 1898–1989
Fish Cove, 1939 or 1940
color lithograph, printed in black, orange, and blue inks from three stones, with crayon and tusche
Overlapping layers of printed color energize this tranquil landscape. Signs of daily life—the puffs of smoke and figures going about their various activities—invite viewers into the immediacy of the action. David P. Chun’s work often featured ordinary scenes that he portrayed with sensitivity. Born in Hawaii, Chun’s deep interest in the landscapes and labor of his San Francisco home not only translated into his prints but also shaped his involvement in debates around the improvement of Chinatown’s built environment.
Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration 174:1943
SAN FRANCISCO
Theodore Polos
American (born Greece), 1902–1976
Brewery, 1938
crayon and tusche lithograph, with scraped highlights
An award-winning painter, Theodore Polos experimented with lithography for the first time with the Federal Art Project. He described the experience in a 1965 interview:
“So [Ray Bertrand] gave me a razor blade. He gave me some tools, and something else, and said, ‘Go right to it.’ So I was experimenting with it, but every time one of the commercial lithographers that were working with me saw what I was doing to the stone, they would just tear their hair out. . . . So I was taking it off, putting it on, wiping it off, washing it off, and so, and did some beautiful textures on the stone.”
Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration 245:1943
SAN FRANCISCO
Sargent Johnson
American, 1888–1967
Lenox Avenue, 1938
crayon lithograph
Music flows through this print, with the figure’s prominent ear and closed eye overlaid with the shape of the piano and keys. Titled Lenox Avenue, in reference to the street in Harlem, New York, it captures the nationwide influence of that center of Black music and culture. Sargent Johnson primarily worked as a sculptor, creating large-scale installations for the WPA. Johnson drew on motifs from African sculpture in an effort to bridge a history of artistic practice with his own experience as an African American artist. His approach is visible here as he plays with forms to communicate a sense of sculptural relief in only two dimensions.
Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration 313:1943
SAN FRANCISCO
Herman Volz
American (born Switzerland), 1904–1990
Lockout, 1937
crayon lithograph
Amid rows of neatly arrayed faceless heads and ears, the small detail of two clenched fists suggests the force present in this assembly. A tree’s natural form contrasts with the industrial operations beyond the wall, out of view and inaccessible to the workers. The title of this lithograph refers to a tactic frequently used by management during strikes and labor disputes in the 1930s. Herman Volz himself actively organized artists to consider their own work as labor through the San Francisco Artists Union.
Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration 272:1943
SAN FRANCISCO
Miné Okubo
American, 1912–2001
The Musician, 1940 or 1941
color screenprint (resist and wash-out stencil)
Colors applied one on top of the other abstract the form of a musician. Miné Okubo used screenprint to great effect in this print, combining swathes of solid color with areas that resemble groups of individual marks. American artists increasingly experimented with models of abstraction in this period. Okubo’s particular skill with bold and graphic imagery would continue in later projects. These included managing the art design for the magazine Trek while incarcerated as a Japanese American at the Topaz Internment camp in Utah from 1942 to 1944 during World War II.
Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration 234:1943
Miné Okubo; made at Topaz concentration camp, Utah; Trek, February 1943, Courtesy of the Library of Congress Np 2452; © Densho 2024
To hear more about Miné Okubo from curator Clare Kobasa, scan the QR code or visit: slam.org/The-Work-of-Art.
SEATTLE
Zama Vanessa Helder
American, 1904–1968
Here Lies, 1939
crayon lithograph
Shadows stretch dramatically against this landscape, making the darkness heavier than the stones dotting the graveyard. The subtle precision and careful balance characterize much of Zama Vanessa Helder’s work in both print and watercolor. Helder worked for the FAP in Seattle after studying printmaking in New York. She continued to exhibit widely and also helped establish an art center in Spokane, Washington, where fellow instructor Robert Oliver Engard described her teaching: “Vanessa was an exceptionally fine instructor in this respect; she developed enthusiasm of the students in the subject . . . Her work, as you say, has a very definite style, but her students’ work was as varied as there were many people in her class.”
Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration 195:1943
SAN FRANCISCO
In addition to the large-scale, collaborative murals dotting the city, San Francisco was also once home to a thriving graphic arts workshop. The regional FAP director, Joseph Danysh, encouraged artists across the program to make prints, expanding the skills and approaches present. Led by Ray Bertrand, artists worked alongside commercial lithographers. Several technical concerns received significant attention: chief among them, the development of color lithography and of transfer paper, a material that allowed the possibility of printmaking to spread beyond the cities or communities that had their own presses. The works on view here show artists looking both locally and at a distance for inspiration, while pursuing a range of visual languages.
The Work of Art, The Federal Art Project, 1936-1943
During the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal initiated a series of nationwide support programs for the arts. The largest program, the Federal Art Project (FAP) of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), put more than 10,000 artists to work. Their art, in turn, decorated municipal spaces, circulated through exhibitions, and was distributed to institutions across the United States. These galleries present highlights from the allocation of 256 prints, drawings, watercolors, and paintings that FAP administrators sent to the Saint Louis Art Museum in 1943 when the program ended.
The FAP sought to broaden opportunities to create and encounter art. Funding supported artists active in many different communities, some of whom had historically not received such assistance. The Museum’s allocation includes significant works by Asian American, Black, female-identifying, and immigrant artists. Within the FAP, artists pursued their own ideas about making art, enabling them to share their personal viewpoints and experiences.
Between 1935 and 1942, the FAP opened offices throughout the United States. The works in this exhibition are arranged by their place of production to offer a perspective on the country’s multifaceted artistic landscape. Some cities are represented in depth, while smaller groupings demonstrate the richness of others. These proportions reflect the makeup of the Museum’s allocation. From the vantage of St. Louis, the exhibition celebrates the wide-ranging power of art to take root in individuals’ lives and contribute to the vitality of communities.
BOSTON
Allan Rohan Crite
American, 1910–2007
Douglass Square, 1936
oil on canvas-covered artist’s board
Allan Rohan Crite frequently painted his Boston neighborhood. Crite explained his preference for this kind of everyday scene, writing that he wanted to depict members of his community just as “human beings, having ordinary lives.”
Crite’s participation in Boston’s FAP reveals the conflicting feelings associated with accepting government support. The economic situation of his middle-class family worsened in 1929 following an injury suffered by his father. Crite joined the FAP in early 1936 but voluntarily left after only 11 months, when a new policy required a more intrusive qualification process. Out of concern for their privacy, his family made the difficult decision to forgo assistance.
Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration 354:1943
PHILADELPHIA
Dox Thrash
American, 1893–1965
Heave!, 1939 or 1940
hard-ground etching and aquatint
Deacon Jones’ Well, 1937 or 1938
soft-ground etching and aquatint
Charlot, 1938 or 1939
carborundum mezzotint
Dox Thrash’s deep investment in the subtleties of printing blackness is evident across the techniques he experimented with and invented in these three prints. The effects range from the linear marks of etching, to the soft tonalities of aquatint, and finally, the vivid darkness of carborundum mezzotint (or Opheliagraph, named in honor of his mother). Thrash roughened the surface of a metal plate with an abrasive powder and then burnished in the highlights. His choice of subject often sought to both celebrate and individualize Black figures and experiences, many drawn from his own life and travels. Thrash remained active as a Philadelphia artist after the FAP closed.
Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration 332:1943; 344:1943; 334:1943
Myron Krasney, American, 1912–2003; published by Works Progress Administration (WPA), Federal Art Project, Philadelphia (1935–1943); Dox Thrash and Claude Clark, 1940; gelatin silver print, 5 7/8 x 9 11/16 inches, sheet: 8 x 10 inches; Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration, on long-term loan to the Philadelphia Museum of Art from the Fine Arts Collection, U.S. General Services Administration, 1943 2-1943-284(70a,b)
To hear more about the making of Charlot from paper conservator Sophie Barbisan, scan the QR code or visit: slam.org/The-Work-of-Art.
NEW ORLEANS
Charles Washington McNeill Jr.
American, 1919–1989
Figure, 1940
graphite
Confident graphite lines accentuate the dynamic curve of a model’s raised right arm and extended right leg. His enlarged hands and exaggerated pose indicate that Charles Washington McNeill Jr. may have created this drawing while assisting with one of the six FAP-sponsored murals in New Orleans. McNeill’s figure wears a newsboy cap similar to those depicted in the History of Printing mural at a New Orleans Public Library branch (see image), suggesting that he might have participated in its creation. McNeill studied art at Southern University, a historically Black school in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration 314:1943
NEW ORLEANS
Joseph Thomas Williams
American, 1916–1976
Yellow House, 1940
watercolor
Broad strokes of blue and white watercolor fill the sky above a large creole cottage, a distinctive type of early 19th-century New Orleans architecture. Perhaps this house, whose address is still unidentified, held special meaning for Joseph Thomas Williams. Rather than showing its front entrance, he depicted the gate to the courtyard between the main house and the two-story kitchen and servants’ quarters. This perspective would have been familiar to a housekeeper, such as his mother, or an ice delivery man, like his father. During his FAP employment, Williams also taught art classes to fellow Black adults and children.
Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration 346:1943
NEW ORLEANS
Lawrence Arthur Jones
American, 1910–1996
Dumaine Street, New Orleans, 1939
The Sun do Move and the Earth am Square, 1940
drypoint
A stirring sermon fills a small Baptist church. Supernatural figures also attend, including dancing angels and a flying devil. The print’s title derives from a famous 19th-century sermon on God’s power. Lawrence Arthur Jones grew up attending a similar church, where he sang in the choir his father directed. Jones studied at the Art Institute of Chicago before moving to New Orleans in 1938 to teach at Dillard University, Louisiana’s first historically Black university.
The FAP in New Orleans got off to a shaky start in 1935 due to its first director’s prejudices. Under new leadership in 1938, more African American artists joined its ranks, including Jones, whose prints such as Dumaine Street, New Orleans documented the city’s French Quarter.
Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration 311:1943; 312:1943
CLEVELAND
Charles L. Sallée Jr.
American, 1911–2006
Swingtime, 1937
soft- and hard-ground etching and aquatint
Dance, music, theater, writing, and visual arts all fed off each other at Karamu House, the foundational center of Black cultural life in Cleveland where Charles L. Sallée Jr. taught and worked. In making this print, he captured the energy of many of those art forms. In 1943, the pioneering Black art historian James A. Porter may as well have been describing this very composition when he called Sallée
“a master of rhythm, so expert that the work is joyously animate. It is as though the artist found nothing but transporting gladness in life.”
Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration 318:1943
CLEVELAND
Kálmán Kubinyi
American, 1906–1973
Cuyahoga, 1936
offset soft-ground etching
The industrial strain on Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River appears in this jumble of machinery and almost too-brilliant sun. From 1935, Kálmán Kubinyi, the son of Hungarian immigrants, worked as the supervisor of the FAP print project in Cleveland, contributing to its particularly innovative spirit. In developing the technique termed “offset soft ground,” he created a way for artists to transfer a drawing directly onto the etching plate. The soft ground picked up every shift in pressure and texture of the crayon such that it appeared in the final image.
Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration 203:1943
WASHINGTON, DC
Frank Herman Alston Jr.
American, 1913–1978
Rhode Island Landscape, 1939
watercolor over graphite
Working in an almost monochromatic palette, Frank Herman Alston Jr. balanced the near-symmetry of two trees meeting across a river. The watercolor medium contributes a meandering softness to a landscape that existed for him as a memory. Alston worked for the FAP in Washington, DC, after a childhood in Rhode Island and education at the Rhode Island School of Design and at Howard University, a historically Black school. In addition to his career as an artist and teacher, Alston went on to become a designer for the Institute of Heraldry in the United States Army.
Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration 347:1943
MILWAUKEE
Edmund Lewandowski
American, 1914–1998
Lowlands, about 1936–40
watercolor
Steely watercolor washes convey a chill in the air in this depiction of wetlands and dunes, with Lake Michigan in the distance. The son of Polish immigrants, Edmund Lewandowski grew up just two blocks from the lake and developed an interest in its industries. Before joining the Wisconsin Art Project in 1936, Lewandowski studied at the Layton School of Art, Milwaukee. He became best known for his meticulous watercolors of factories, harbors, and ships. These he painted with the same sensitivity to their repeating shapes that informed his representations of the spidery tree branches in Lowlands.
Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration 292:1943
Memphis
Look for the gray building with the blue roof. It is the LeMoyne Federal Art Center in Memphis, Tennessee. Fifteen African American artists, aged 7 to 15 years old, gathered there to create these bold, bright paintings in a free art class. The Center opened in 1938, the result of a cooperative effort among the FAP in Tennessee, LeMoyne-Owen College, and Memphis’s African American communities.
Between 1936 and 1943, the FAP opened 107 community arts centers across the United States. Some centers, such as this one, explicitly extended the FAP’s outreach into Black communities. Others were deliberately integrated, such as the People’s Art Center in St. Louis (see case nearby).
To hear from Museum educators Kira Hegeman and Latausha Cox, scan the QR code or visit: slam.org/The-Work-of-Art.
MEMPHIS
from top to bottom, left to right:
Weldon Sugarmon
American, 1924–2023
Aquarium, 1938
Cornelia Massey
American, 1926–2018
Boy Showing Dog Airplane, 1938
Vivian Crowder
American, 1926–2019
Wash Day, 1938
Harold Lloyd Neal
American, 1924–1996
Wash Day, 1938
Byron Gilbert Ragsdale
American, 1925–1996
Landscape with Trees, 1938
Walter Ellis Ragsdale Jr.
American, 1924–2011
Watermelon Truck, 1939
Mattie Lou Mitchell
American, 1925–1973
Two Ducks on a Pond, 1938
Emmett Erskine Jones
American, 1928–2018
The Art Center, 1938
Scott Bell Jr.
American, 1924–1984
Bin Fishin, 1938
Robert Louis Franklin Jr.
American, 1928–2005
After School, 1938
Joseph Percy Atkins
American, 1927–1999
Landscape, 1938
Jack Bell Jr.
American, 1926–1989
Houses, 1938
Iona Ruby Farley
American, 1927–2013
Landscape, 1938
Mary Frances Gathings
American, 1931–1995
Woman Preparing Supper, 1938
Earnest Yarbrough
American, 1923–1980
White Horse, 1938
poster paint on brown paper
Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration 401:1943; 386:1943; 372:1943; 393:1943; 399:1943; 398:1943; 390:1943; 382:1943; 367:1943; 400:1943; 365:1943; 371:1943; 373:1943; 375:1943; 403:1943
To read the biographies of these artists, scan the QR code or visit: slam.org/WPAMemphis.
ST. LOUIS
The People’s Art Center
The People’s Art Center (PAC) in St. Louis opened in 1942 as an FAP-funded community arts center. Many St. Louisans advocated for its establishment. Among the supporters were civic organizations such as the Urban League and the Saint Louis Art Museum, including its acting director, Charles Nagel. The Center’s staff worked to place art in the lives of everyday people through exhibitions and free art classes for all ages. Teachers promoted student work, such as the prints that decorated PAC annual reports and Christmas cards.
When the FAP ended in 1943, its administrators distributed thousands of artworks among museums, schools, and libraries. Nagel specifically asked for art by Black artists for use at the PAC. His request explains why many works in this exhibition came to the Museum, including the Memphis paintings on view nearby.
top:
Adult class at People’s Art Center, 1942
gelatin silver prints
bottom, from left to right:
Children’s class at People’s Art Center, 1942
People’s Art Center class, 1942
gelatin silver prints
Museum Archives, Saint Louis Art Museum
SAINT LOUIS
top row, from left to right:
Eleanor Roberts
American, 1933–2002
Annual Report of the People’s Art Center, 1946
bottom row, from left to right:
Christmas Card, to benefit the People’s Art Center, by 9-year-old student, around 1942–50
Lucius Griffith
American, 1936–2016
Annual Report of the People’s Art Center, 1948
Christmas Card, to benefit the People’s Art Center, by 11-year-old student, around 1942–50
Frank McClendon
American, born 1935
Annual Report of the People’s Art Center, 1949
relief prints
Richardson Memorial Library, Saint Louis Art Museum
PHILADELPHIA
In Philadelphia, the Fine Print Workshop offered a dynamic artmaking space on Broad Street beginning in 1937. Artists of different generations, racial backgrounds, and varying levels of experience tested out new ideas and experimented creatively alongside one another. Many artists had previously trained or worked in the art schools and clubs that formed the city’s rich cultural landscape. An active exhibition program also helped promote discoveries, such as the carborundum mezzotint printmaking technique developed by a group of FAP artists that included Dox Thrash, whose work is nearby. In comparison to art produced for mural and poster projects, often limited by restrictions on subject matter and technique, the print workshop provided conditions that supported artists’ agency in developing a more personal vision.
PHILADELPHIA
Samuel Joseph Brown Jr.
American, 1907–1994
Wash Girl, about 1938
linocut
Towering over the landscape, the wash girl makes the world her own. Samuel Joseph Brown Jr.’s framing counteracts the heavy burdens of domestic labor such as washing clothes, labor that often fell to exploited Black women in the period. The graphic immediacy of Brown’s black-and-white linocut contrasts with the multicolored hues of his preferred medium—the remarkably fluid watercolors that won him praise from Eleanor Roosevelt, among many others (see image). This expansiveness suggests how artists could be encouraged to translate familiar subject matter in a new way.
Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration 302:1943
Samuel Joseph Brown Jr., American, 1907–1994; associated with Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration, Washington, D.C., active 1935–1943; Self-Portrait, about 1941; watercolor, charcoal, and graphite on paper, 20 1/4 x 15 3/8 inches; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Pennsylvania W. P. A., 1943 43.46.4
PHILADELPHIA
Salvatore Pinto
American (born Italy), 1905–1966
Trolley Car, about 1936–41
wood engraving
Salvatore Pinto varied the quality of hundreds of tiny, precise cuts into a block of wood to convey a whole range of material surfaces, from metal fittings to fabric clothes. Drawing inspiration from his daily observations, Pinto pictured his fellow trolley travelers sharing the experience of navigating urban spaces simultaneously together and alone. Pinto was one of three brothers whose artistic careers were supported by local Philadelphia institutions and donors, including the noted collector Albert C. Barnes.
Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration 242:1943
PHILADELPHIA
Gerardo Belfiore
American (born Italy), 1914–2002
Southbound, about 1939
crayon and tusche lithograph, with scraped highlights
Standing on a platform of the Broad Street subway, a lone figure awaits the bright light of a rapidly approaching train. WPA funds enabled the construction of a southward extension of the line to Snyder Avenue, which opened in 1938. The composition captures the daily routines of moving around the city, an experience Gerardo Belfiore chose to represent in a work produced in a FAP workshop. In both image and making, the print is a testament to the many ways that government funds supported infrastructure and culture.
Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration 161:1943
PHILADELPHIA
Joseph Hirsch
American, 1910–1981
Fruit in the Rain, about 1938
watercolor over graphite, with scraped highlights
A fire hydrant’s pop of yellow echoes the bright fruit arrayed for sale in the cart. Joseph Hirsch worked in the easel and mural divisions in Philadelphia, producing imagery that spoke to the immediate social concerns of the day. With a perspective slightly above and behind the figure, he emphasizes the effort and labor involved. Hirsch’s handling of watercolor, a portable medium that demanded a surprising level of control from the artist, is visible in the subtle reflections in the water.
Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration 290:1943
PHILADELPHIA
Raymond Steth
American, 1917–1997
Patton St. Derelict, about 1938–41
crayon and tusche lithograph, with scraped highlights
McKee’s Back Yard, about 1938–41
soft- and hard-ground etching and aquatint
Beacons of Defense, 1941
crayon lithograph, with scraped highlights
Raymond Steth applied to the FAP on the strength of his drawings, having never made a single print. While he did some early work in the etching processes favored by Dox Thrash and others, his graphic and compositional strengths became clearly visible in his many lithographs. Later works, such as Beacons of Defense, exploded the bounds of the bounds of the picture in a way that reflected Steth’s close study of mural painting and narrative. In contrast to the memories and experiences captured in Patton St. Derelict or McKee’s Back Yard, Beacons advertises the present and future contributions to a growing war machine. Under the bright lights, Steth marks the winding down of one governmental effort and the beginning of another.
Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration 321:1943; 326:1943; 329:1943
Charles Ricker, American, 1883–1948; Raymond Steth working on Beacons of Defense, 1941; gelatin silver print; image: 7 11/16 x 9 5/8 inches, sheet: 8 1/8 x 10 inches; Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration, on long-term loan to the Philadelphia Museum of Art from the Fine Arts Collection, U.S. General Services Administration, 1943 2-1943-284(63)