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The New Deal Art Projects in New York Francis V The New Deal Art Projects in New York Francis V. O'Connor American Art Journal, Vol. 1, No. 2. (Autumn, 1969), pp. 58-79. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-7359%28196923%291%3A2%3C58%3ATNDAPI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-H American Art Journal is currently published by Kennedy Galleries, Inc.. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/journals/kgi.html. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. The JSTOR Archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access to leading academic journals and scholarly literature from around the world. The Archive is supported by libraries, scholarly societies, publishers, and foundations. It is an initiative of JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to help the scholarly community take advantage of advances in technology. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. http://www.jstor.org Sun Jan 13 12:05:49 2008 The American Art Journal The New Deal Art Projects in New York BY FRANCIS V. O'CONNOR I. THEPROJECTS IN GENERAL' The Federal Government sought to alleviate the acute economic need of the nation's visual artists by cresting four art projects in the Depression. These were the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP, December, 1933, to June, 1934), the Treasury Section of Painting and Sculpture (Section, October, 1934, to June, 1943), the Treasury Relief Art Project (TRAP, July, 1935, to about June, 1939), and the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project (WPA/FAP, Au- gust, 1935, to April, 1943).2 The PWAP was organized to help unemployed artists through the winter of 1933-34. Its funds were supplied by Harry Hopkins' Civil Works Administration and it was directed by Edward Bruce of the Treasury Department, the one govern- ment agency at the time mandated to supervise the acquisition of works of art. Bruce, a lawyer, had been a banker, newspaper owner, art collector and, since 1923, a professional painter. During the first intense months of the New Deal he represented the Treasury as a silver expert at the London Economic Conference. While there he held a successful one-man show. When he returned to the Treas- ury Department, he was found to be highly equipped for the delicate task of initiating a patronage program for unemployed artists. The primary aim of the PWAP was to provide work for these artists in the decoration of non-Federal public buildings and parks. Art, as defined for the purpose of this project, covered sculpture, painting, design, and the products of 1. I have relied for the most part on the following works: Edward Bruce and Forbes Watson, Art in Federal Buildings, Washington, D.C., 1936; Belisario R. Contreras, "Treasury Art Programs, The New Deal and the American Artist," unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Ameri- can University, 1967; Olin Dows, "The New Deal's Treasury Art Program: A Memoir," Arts in Society, Vol. 2, no. 4, n.d., 51-58; William F. MacDonald, "Federal Relief Administration and the Arts: A Study of the Works Progress Administration," unpublished manuscript, New York, 1949; Ralph Purcell, Government and Art, Washington, D.C., 1956; Erica Beckh Rubenstein, "Tax Payer's Murals," unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard, 1944, and Pre- liminary lnventory of the Records of the Public Buildings Service, Record Group 121, com- piled by W. Lane Van Neste and Virgil E. Baugh, National Archives, Washington, D.C., 1958. Much material has also been drawn from the primary source documents concerning the WPA Federal Art Project preserved in Record Group 69 at the National Archives. 2. For a more detailed published history and chronology of the national New Deal art projects see my Federal Art Patronage: 1933 to 1943, College Park, University of Maryland Art Gallery, 1966, and my Federal Support for the Visual Arts: The New Deal and Now; A Francis V. O'Connor is assistant pro- Report on the New Deal art projects in New York City and State with recommendations fessor of art history at the University for present-day Federal support of the visual arts to the National Endowment for the Arts, of Maryland and is writing a history Roger L. Stevens, Chairman, Washington, D.C., 1968, Greenwich, Connecticut: The New of American art in the 1930s. York Graphic Society, 1969. The American Art Journal craft. While the primary purpose of the project was to give employment to needy artists, a dual selection standard was set up. The artist had actually to be in need as well as competent. This dual standard raised the question of whether PWAP was to be administered as a relief project or one designed to acquire art for the Government. The Washington office never really clarified this point, though Edward Bruce tried. In his general instructions of December 10, 1933, he sug- gested that artists be employed on a weekly basis, so their performance could be checked and the "drones" eliminated.3 On December 14, he wrote to Mrs. Juliana Force, director of the New York Region: It is going to take a fine sense of discrimination on all of us to select only those needy artists whose artistic ability is worthy of their employment. One phase of this work, of course, is to put men to work, but I think that we ought all remember that we are putting artists to work and not trying to make artists out of bums.* Bruce wanted to stress the idea that PWAP was not a relief measure, but a public works program to employ artists to beautify public buildings in America. Thus, in March, 1934, shortly before PWAP came to an end, he was thinking of with- drawing from the Civil Works Administration by seeking an appropriation from the Public Works Administration. This would eliminate the relief feature of the project and enable Bruce to employ artists on the sole basis of q~ality.~He would realize this ambition as director of the Section. PWAP limited the subject matter to the "American Scene" and was chary of anything experimental, unconventional, or possibly titillating. These attitudes are revealingly set forth in a satisfied letter from Edward B. Rowan, Assistant Tech- nical Director of PWAP, to Emmanuel M. Benson dated May, 24,1934: Instructions sent from the central office in Washington to the various regions was that the artists be employed as quickly as possible for the decoration of public buildings (any building supported wholly, or in part, by taxation) and that the term of embellishment could be interpreted to cover any of the plastic and graphic arts' media. Naturally, some artists thought instantly of fresco, others of easel paintings, others of sculpture, lithography, etching, batik and the like. In no case was any stress laid upon either conservative or experimental work-the artist was encouraged to work in that mode which was compatible to his own individual nature. The one restriction, which I think was absolutely 3. Edward Bruce and Forbes Watson to Duncan Phillips, December 10, 1933; National Ar- chives Record Group 121, entry group 106, box 3. Hereafter only entry group and box number will be given. See my A Preliminarp Report of Activities and Accomplishments with a Guide to New Deal Art Project Documentation, Federal Support for the Visual Arts: The New Deal and Now, A Research Project, Washington, D.C., 1968, for a detailed ex- planation and inventory of the National Archives' holdings in the field of the New Deal projects. 4. 105:ll 5. Bruce to Force, March 15, 1934; 116:5. The American Art Jouvnal justified in view of the fact that the artists were working for the American Government, was that they stress in as far as ~ossiblethe American scene. This was very broadly interpreted and rightly so. Every phase of the American scene was brought forth including still life and figure painting. There were very few nude paintings and my personal reaction is that this was as it should be in view of the fact that all of the works were designed for public buildings. All in all I think that the artists showed a very intelligent approach and we noted that many of those who in the past had done extremely experimental things at- tempted to tone down their expression with the result that there was a decided note of sincerity in the majority of the work. I hope you know me well enough to know that I have never disparaged experimental work-I personally get much pleasure from experimentation and encourage it in the case of the private painters. I feel that most of the painters felt that the time was so limited that they must get down to brass tacks and work with those things in which they were perfectly familiar. I hope you do not regard my attitude as narrow in this case but I was happy to see that there were few vaudeville stunts pulled by the artists under the Pr~ject.~ No doubt the limited scope of the PWAP also reduced the incidence of "vaude- ville stunts." The original employment quota of 2,500 artists was divided among sixteen regions, each of which received an allocation in accordance with its popu- lation and with the number of artists who were estimated to live in it.
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