The Public Works of Art Project in Minnesota, 1933-34
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University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for 1989 Joint Venture or Testy Alliance?: The Public Works of Art Project in Minnesota, 1933-34 Thomas O'Sullivan Minnesota Historical Society Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly Part of the Other International and Area Studies Commons O'Sullivan, Thomas, "Joint Venture or Testy Alliance?: The Public Works of Art Project in Minnesota, 1933-34" (1989). Great Plains Quarterly. 405. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/405 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. JOINT VENTURE OR TESTY ALLIANCE? THE PUBLIC WORKS OF ART PROJECT IN MINNESOTA, 1933,34 THOMAS O'SULLIVAN Like many American painters of his genera approved, we were to develop larger and more tion, Syd Fossum left art school under the cloud complete paintings from them. of the Great Depression. The economic uncer tainties of the 1930s only added to the dubious • • • support a young painter in the Midwest might The directions seemed vague, but Mac and expect. But an unimagined opportunity launched I busily dashed off about half a dozen sketches Fossum and many others into unparalleled pro apiece. To make sure that they were truly ductivity as artists and self-respect as involved "American Scene," we included in our members of the art community and American paintings, plenty ofNRA symbols with their society. Fossum's own reminiscences suggest the blue eagles. [The National Recovery Act was excitement of the moment. He recalled that in one of the first pieces of legislation in the December 1933 he received a letter assigning New Deal program.] him to the newly formed Public Works of Art Then we sat back to await further instruc Project (PWAP). tions ... Mac and I both felt very impor tant.! I phoned my artist friend Mac LeSueur, also recently a student at the Minneapolis School As Fossum's experience indicates, the federally of Art (MSA) and learned that he too was funded art projects of the 1930s affected artists' on PWOAP [sic] .... livelihoods and artistic production. This article We were asked to do sketches of the "Amer will examine the workings, output, and char ican Scene," which were then to be sent to acter of the Public Works of Art Project in Chicago. As we understood it, if they were Minnesota as it sought to fulfill the cultural and social ideals of this national experiment through the leading art institution and the individual Thomas O'Sullivan is curator of art at the Minnesota artists of the state. Historical Society. In the growing literature on the federally funded art programs of the New Deal era, the (GPQ 9 (Spring 1989); 89-99) PWAP holds a relatively small place. This is 89 90 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 1989 tion utilized local museums to give a substantial degree of local control to parts of the nation that had long chafed under the cultural hege, mony of the East-especially New York City. It also put an official stamp of approval on a broad spectrum of realist styles and contemporary sub, ject matter with its theme of "the American Scene." In May 1933, painter George Biddle wrote to his old Harvard classmate, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, to propose a national mural project. 4 The idea interested the president, who referred Biddle to the Treasury Department, custodian of government buildings. This initial foray into bureaucracy entangled Biddle's plan in the run, ning aesthetic battles between conservative, classically,oriented architects and younger art, ists who saw the mural as an opportunity to interpret contemporary American life. But the idea of federal patronage took hold in the T reas, FIG. 1. Syd Fossum; Self Portrait. Oil on can' ury, where a newly appointed official named vas, 1936. Courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Edward Bruce was eager to advance it. A lawyer, Society Collection. Fossum here portrays himself specialist in international finance, and an ac, as the artist,worker. The studio setting, painting at complished painter, Bruce moved in the varied upper right turned to the wall, and the pencil in circles of art, business, and government that a hand all identify him as an artist, while the bulky federal art program would involve. Bruce and fisherman's sweater and its red button, emblem of Biddle joined forces to press for an allocation Fossum's Communist Party affiliation, bespeak his of funds, and by November 1933 relief admin' radical stance. istrator Harry L. Hopkins granted $1,039,000.00 from the Civil Works Administration for an artists' employment program, to be handled by understandable enough, for the project lasted the Treasury Department with Edward Bruce as only from the harsh winter of 1933 through the its chief. spring of 1934.z In contrast, the better,known Bruce gathered a group of museum directors Treasury Section of Fine Arts commissioned and an advisory committee of New Deal officials murals and sculptures for post offices and other at his home on 8 December 1933. Dividing the federal buildings from 1934 to 1943. The Works country into sixteen regions, they planned an Progress Administration's relief program, the organization that enlisted local museum direc, Federal Art Project (FAP), can be credited with tors as chairpersons, with committees of inter, a comparatively large output of artworks and ested citizens to oversee aesthetic standards and related activities between 1935 and 1943. 3 Yet place art in public buildings. This structure took the PWAP was the United States government's advantage of existing networks of individuals first large,scale, nationwide venture into art pa, who knew the artists of their area as well. tronage. It effectively established the principle The PWAP recognized artists as an integral of federal art support by putting on its payroll segment of the American population, entitled 3749 artists who created 15,663 pieces of art. to receive assistance and to contribute their spe, The PWAP's decentralized regional organiza, cial skills in the time of national crisis. Bruce's PUBLIC WORKS OF ART PROJECT 91 announcement of the PWAP on 11 December Woodhill Country Club. "9 His reign as director 1933 spelled out this fundamental credo of the lasted thirty-five years. New Deal's approach to culture: Plimpton's advisory committee of ten showed a noticeable lack of professional artists, though In approving PWAP, Mr. Hopkins, has rec all were knowledgeable in art. Minneapolis ognized that the artist, like the laborer, cap School of Art director Edward Kopietz was a italist, and the office worker, eats, drinks, painter; Cyrus Bissell and Wilbur Tusler, ar has a family, and pays rent, thus contra chitects; Andreas Larsen, a worker in stained dicting the old superstition, that the painter glass. Lindley Hosford was by avocation an and sculptor live in attics and exist on in etcher whose works were widely exhibited; spiration ... [Tlhe approximately 2,500 art Alfred Pillsbury was a discerning connoisseur ists, now unemployed, are to be given and Minneapolis Institute trustee; and Hudson employment in their own field under con Walker, director of the University of Minne ditions calculated not to deflate their inspi sota's Little Gallery, was champion of such ration. 5 American modernists as Marsden Hartley. This committee makeup was in line with PWAP pol PWAP organization moved quickly. Mrs. In icy as stated by PWAP official Forbes Watson: crease Robinson, head of the advisory commit tee for PWAP Region 10 (comprising Illinois, To avoid embarrassing the artists by placing Wisconsin, and Minnesota), wired Minneapolis them on the Committees and thereby per Institute of Arts director Russell A. Plimpton haps, rendering unemployed artists ineligible asking him to suggest unemployed Minnesota for employment, and to escape the risk of artists who could be put to "immediate work at partisan action, the Committees have been good wages."6 Plimpton's reply, mailed the next made up of eminent museum directors and day, included the names of fourteen "practicing other distinguished members of the com artists who depend on the sale of their work, munity actively interested in the advance or on odd jobs for their livelihood."7 ment of art-men and women who have The Minneapolis Institute of Arts was the already proved their soundness of judgement likeliest headquarters for the PWAP's Minne and their lack of bias. 10 sota subcommittee. Though the museum was not quite twenty years old, its parent body, the In appointing his technical committee to Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts, dated back evaluate the work of PWAP artists, Plimpton to 1883. 8 The Minneapolis School of Art (today made the wise choice of the respected Minne the Minneapolis College of Art and Design), sota painter Cameron Booth (fig. 2). Booth had its companion institution within the Society of also come to Minnesota in 1921, to teach at Fine Arts, had opened in 1886. While its col the Minneapolis School of Art, and soon won lections and exhibits were primarily intended top honors in Minnesota exhibits. He knew the to address an encyclopedic range of world art, paintings and ideas of European modernists the Minneapolis Institute had sponsored juried firsthand and subscribed to a work ethic that fit shows of local artists' work since 1915. Russell well with the PWAP philosophy: Plimpton had come to Minneapolis from New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1921 to The accepted idea that an artist is an im become the Minneapolis Institute's second di practical person waiting for an inspiration is rector.