RESOURCE GUIDE 1934: A New Deal for Artists is organized and circulated by the Smithsonian American Art Museum with support from the William R. Kenan Jr. Endowment Fund and the Smithsonian Council for American1 A NEW9 DEAL3 FOR ARTISTS4 Art. The C. F. Foundation in Atlanta supports the museum’s traveling exhibition program, Treasures to Go. May 26 – August 21, 2011 01 “I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people.” FDR, accepting the Democratic Party nomination for President, 1932 Detail: Ilya Bolotowsky (American, 1907-1981). In the Barber Shop, 1934. Oil on Canvas. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor, 1964.1.79 1934: A NEW DEAL FOR ARTISTS TaBLE OF CONTENTS May 26–August 21, 2011 1 Exhibition Introduction 1934: A New Deal for Artists celebrates the 75th anniversary of the Public 2 Public Works of Art Project Works of Art Project by drawing on the Smithsonian American Art 3 Industry Museum’s unparalleled collection of vibrant paintings created for the program. The 56 paintings in the exhibition are a lasting visual record of 4 The City America at a specific moment in time. George Gurney, deputy chief curator, organized the exhibition with Ann Prentice Wagner, independent 5 City Life curator. Federal officials in the 1930s understood how essential art was to 6 Labor sustaining America’s spirit. During the depths of the Great Depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s administration created the Public 7 American People Works of Art Project, which lasted only six months from mid-December 1933 to June 1934. The purpose of the program was to alleviate the 8 Leisure distress of professional, unemployed American artists by paying them to produce artwork that could be used to embellish public buildings. The 9 The Country program was administered under the Treasury Department by art 10 Nature professionals in 16 different regions of the country. Artists from across the United States who participated in the program 11 Timeline were encouraged to depict “the American Scene,” but they were allowed to interpret this idea freely. They painted regional, recognizable 13 Reading Lists subjects—ranging from portraits to cityscapes and images of city life to landscapes and depictions of rural life—that reminded the public of 18 Lessons Plans quintessential American values such as hard work, community, and optimism. These artworks, which were displayed in schools, libraries, post offices, museums, and government buildings, vividly capture the realities and ideals of Depression-era America. The exhibition is arranged into eight sections: “American People,” “City Life,” “Labor,” “Industry,” “Leisure,” “The City,” “The Country,” and “Nature.” Works from 13 of the 16 regions established by the Advisory Committee to the Treasury on Fine Arts are represented in the exhibition. 1934: A NEW DEAL FOR ARTISTS 02 ABOUT THE PUBLIC WORKS OF ART PROJECT America in the 1930s The United States was in crisis as 1934 approached. The national Population: 123,188,000 in 48 economy had fallen into an extended depression after the stock market states crash of October 1929. Thousands of banks failed, wiping out the life savings of millions of families. Farmers battled drought, erosion, and Life Expectancy: Male, 58.1 years; declining food prices. Businesses struggled or collapsed. A quarter of the Female, 61.6 years work force was unemployed, while an equal number worked reduced Average Salary: $1,368 a year hours. More and more people were homeless and hungry. Nearly 10,000 Unemployment rises to 25% unemployed artists faced destitution. The nation looked expectantly to President Roosevelt, who was Food Prices: Milk, 14 cents per inaugurated in March 1933. The new administration swiftly initiated a quart; Bread, 9 cents a loaf; wide-ranging series of economic recovery programs called the New Round Steak, 42 cents a pound Deal. The President realized that Americans needed not only employment but also the inspiration art could provide. The Advisory Committee to the Treasury on Fine Arts organized the Public Works of Art Project on December 8, 1933. Within days, 16 regional committees were recruiting artists who eagerly set to work in all parts of the country. During the project’s brief existence, from December 1933 to June 1934, the Public Works of Art Project hired 3,749 artists who created 15,663 paintings, murals, sculptures, prints, drawings, and craft objects at a cost of $1,312,000. The Project has been a In April 1934, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., exhibited more than 500 works created as part of the Public Works of Art recognition of the value Project. Selected paintings from the Corcoran exhibition later traveled to of culture and the arts the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and other cities across the country. President Roosevelt, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and in American life. It is a government officials who attended the exhibition in Washington significant example of acclaimed the art enthusiastically. The Roosevelts selected 32 paintings for display at the White House, including Sheets’ Tenement Flats (1933–34) the President’s desire and Strong’s Golden Gate Bridge (1934). The success of the Public Works to give the people of of Art Project paved the way for later New Deal art programs, including this country “a more the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project. Nearly 150 paintings from the Public Works of Art Project were abundant life.” transferred to the Smithsonian American Art Museum during the 1960s, along with a large number of artworks from subsequent programs that Edward Bruce, National extended into the 1940s, especially the well-known Works Progress Exhibition of Art by the Public Administration program. The museum has one of the largest collections of Works of Art Project, 1934 New Deal art in the world, numbering nearly 3,000 objects. Detail: Morris Kantor (American, 1896–1974). Baseball at Night, 1934. Oil on linen Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Morris Kantor, 1976.146.18 Section One: INDUSTRY 03 Every artist... is so keyed up to the importance of the situation, amounting practically to a revoluntion for him, that Ray Strong (American, 1905–2006). Golden Gate Bridge, 1934. Oil he is without exception, on canvas. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 1965.18.50 putting every ounce of Ray Strong his energy and creative Golden Gate Bridge, 1934 ability into his work as Oil on canvas never before. This panoramic depiction of the Golden Gate Bridge under construction pays tribute Harry Gottlieb to Edward Bruce to the ambitious feat of engineering of the PWAP, January 2, 1934 required to span the mouth of San Francisco Bay. Artist Ray Strong painted looking north from the San Francisco side to the hills of Paul Kelpe (American, 1902–1985). Machinery (Abstract #2), 1933–34. Marin County, where the first bright orange Oil on canvas. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor, 1964.1.27 tower rises. Tugboats and a freighter sailing across the deep blue waters typify the busy Paul Kelpe shipping that would routinely pass beneath Machinery (Abstract #2), 1933–34 the span. The bridge therefore had to have Oil on canvas the highest deck ever built. The two massive concrete structures in the foreground are BEFORE VIEWING What kind of industry does the man holding anchors for the cables supporting the deck. Define and discuss the following the levers control in Paul Kelpe’s painting The vast structures on the San Francisco side terms: Economic Depression, Machinery? There are no hints; the dwarf the men working around the Great Depression, Black Tuesday, smokestacks emit no smoke and no product anchorages and pylons. Strong’s painting, Wall Street Crash of 1929 piles up on the factory floor. In fact, Kelpe’s with its intense colors and active brushwork, mechanism manufactures nothing. He was conveys an infectious optimism. Hundreds of U.S. Statistics for the years 1929-1932 actually an abstract painter whose tourists who shared the artist’s excitement concerns were aesthetic. In his paintings for came to gaze at this amazing project that • Stocks lost more than 75% of the Public Works of Art Project, he knew that continued despite the financial strains of the their value, wiping out some he needed to somehow address the Great Depression and the disastrous storm $45 billion in wealth. American scene. “As they refused to accept that washed away a trestle on Halloween of • About 20% of the roughly ‘nonrepresentational’ art,” he said, “I made 1933. It was only fitting that President Franklin 25,000 banks failed because a number of pictures with geometric Roosevelt chose this painting celebrating of heavy losses in the stock machinery.” But Kelpe, unlike the many the triumph of American engineering to market, real estate, and other PWAP artists who factually depicted hang in the White House. industrial scenes, studied no real-life investments. factories. He created his own independent • Depositors lost more than $1 visual world, reflecting the kind of billion—some their life’s technological progress of which Americans savings—in bank failures were proud. The artist thoughtfully balanced • Roughly 300,000 other large and small shapes, warm and cool business failed. colors, to create a harmonious mechanistic • The national income dropped vision. A pattern of diagonal brushstrokes on by more than 50% (from the painting’s surface catches the light to about $88 billion to about $42 suggest action. The wheels seem to turn with billion) the soft hum of a well-tuned machine. • Suicide rates rose by more than 25% (from 13.9 to 17.4 per 100,000 people) Section Two: THE CITY 04 Unidentified artist.