Exhibitions

ARTISTS FROM THE NEW DEAL

As a result of the devastating stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression, American artists were among the beneficiaries from what can be seen as a stimulus package created more than 75 years ago. As a result, in l933 and l934 alone more than 3,700 artists were able to receive government commissions through the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Federal Arts Project (FAP). These programs invited trained artists to focus their murals, paintings and prints on contemporary American life for the interiors of civic buildings and public collections. In short, while the projects gave needed employment to artists, the works themselves were meant, “. . .to lift the spirits of a demoralized nation through depictions of ‘the American Scene’.”

The Academy Art Museum’s permanent collection has a number of works by artists who benefitted from direct government intervention. While the works on view seem to share the expected subjects of the American scene – motherhood, education, the heartland and even the national pastime – the mood of individual works is not necessarily uplifting. Collectively, these works offer a cross section of what many viewers think of as a quintessential American identity from a previous era.

< back to list