The devastating stock market crash of 1929 triggered the Great Depression, the worst economic crisis in the history of the United States. At the height of the Depression in 1933, nearly 13 million people—roughly 25 percent of the workforce—were unemployed. In response, President Franklin D. Roosevelt created an economic relief program known as the New Deal to offer employment to struggling Americans. The Works Progress Administration (WPA), a federally funded agency, hired some ten thousand artists to produce work for public buildings and traveling exhibitions as part of the Federal Art Project (FAP).
“I, too, have a dream—to show people in the out of the way places, some of whom are not only in small villages but in corners of New York City—something they cannot get from between the covers of books—some real paintings and prints and etchings and some real music.”
Franklin Roosevelt to Hendrik Willem Van Loon, January 6, 1938
From coast to coast, the WPA supported artists who created paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, and murals for the American public. These artists drew on their everyday experiences as they depicted their own communities in a wide range of locations from urban centers to rural outposts. The WPA employed such established figures as John Steuart Curry as well as newcomers like Jacob Lawrence, providing materials, community, and income at a critical moment in their careers. After the WPA was closed in 1943, works of art produced under federal sponsorship were allocated to institutions across the country, including what is today the Blanton Museum of Art. The museum’s allotment serves as the basis for Art in Every Corner and is displayed in the context of pieces made by WPA artists before or after their periods of federal employment, encouraging an exploration and celebration of the dynamic impact of the WPA’s programs on artists who represented every corner of American life during the 1930s and ’40s.
Artists featured in Art in Every Corner: The Works Progress Administration (1935-1943) include Thomas Hart Benton, Grant Wood, John Steuart Curry, Dorothea Lange, Jacob Lawrence, Rockwell Kent, Paul Cadmus, and Walker Evans.
Curated by Sarah Bane, Assistant Curator of Prints and Drawings, Blanton Museum of Art with Anna Smith, Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in Prints and Drawings
Upcoming Related Programs
Public Tour – Art in Every Corner: The Works Progress Administration (1935-1943)
Thomas Hart Benton, Shallow Creek, 1939, lithograph, 16 × 11 7/8 in., Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Transfer from the General Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin, 1980.125 © T.H. Benton and R.P. Benton Testamentary Trusts/UMB Bank Trustee/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
Rufino Tamayo, Shower, 1936, watercolor and pastel on paper, 12 3/8 × 8 11/16 in., Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Deposit from the Works Progress Administration, United States Government, G1943.1.45, Art © Tamayo Heirs/Mexico/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
Donato Rico, Subway Drillers, c. 1937, wood engraving, Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Deposit from the Works Progress Administration, United States Government G1943.1.25.
Elizabeth Olds, Steel Mills, circa 1935, color lithograph, 14 3/4 × 20 3/4 in., Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Deposit from the Works Progress Administration, United States Government, G1943.1.18
Hal West, Abandoned Homestead, 1935, linocut, 8 × 5 1/4 in., Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Deposit from the Works Progress Administration, United States Government, G1943.1.35
Michael J. Leone, Golden Gloves Tournament, circa 1935, linocut, 12 × 10 1/8 in., Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Deposit from the Works Progress Administration, United States Government, G1943.1.10
Grant Wood, February, 1941, lithograph, 11 15/16 × 15 7/8 in., Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Gift of Susan Garwood in memory of Sue Ann Reagan, 2004.106
Credit
Art In Every Corner: The Works Progress Administration (1935-1943) is organized by the Blanton Museum of Art.
Support for this exhibition at the Blanton is provided in part by Ellen Berman.