How Effective Was The New Deal At Reviving The Visual Arts Within The U.S.A. From A Period Of 1933-1943?

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Before the depression the major purchaser of art was private industry,1 such as rich businessmen who decorated their mansions with art. Once the depression hit, the private industry for art trade dried up, and so did the income for artists.

George Biddle sought funding from the government for art, artists, and art institutions, during the Great Depression. He based his idea on murals created in Mexico.2

Biddle wrote to Roosevelt, and within a few short months, the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), was created, given $1,039,000 by the Civil Works Administration.

The PWAP lasted only six months, ending in June 1934, but it employed “nearly four thousand artists, who had produced fifteen and a half thousand works of art.”3 However, the PWAP was quite limited, not only in the length of the program, but its budget. “Only about half the artists on the relief rolls [were employed], and some of these for only a matter of days”. 4

There was now a major understanding of ...

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on, many competitions were anonymous.

The Section circulated many exhibits, including National Art Week in 1940, providing decorations for many buildings at the 1939-40 New York World Fair, ’48 States Competition, a nation-wide mural contest.

Ben Shahn had a mural with a quote from Walt Whitman incorporated into it, at the Bronx Central Post Office. It was denied when Jesuits at Fordham University objected to it on religious grounds.

Artists had to provide their own materials and assistants, but got relatively high wages.

3. The Federal Arts Project

Another program was the Federal Arts Project, FAP, under the Works Progress Administration, WPA. It began in 1935, and ...

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