Federal Art Project
Online Materials | External
Collections
The Federal Art Project (FAP) was created in 1935 to provide
work relief for artists in various media--painters, sculptors,
muralists and graphic artists, with varous levels of experience.
Holger Cahill, a curator and fine and folk art expert, was
appointed director of the program. As with the other Federal
cultural projects of the time, the program sought to bring
art and artists into the everyday life of communities throughout
the United States, through community art centers, exhibitions
and classes.
The Federal Art Project was just one of several government-sponsored
art programs of the period. Others included the Public Works
of Art Project (PWAP) (1933-34), the Department
of the Treasury's Section of Painting and Scultpure (1934-42;
renamed the Section of Fine Arts in 1938), and its Treasury
Relief Art Project (TRAP) (1935-38).
Online Materials
WPA
Posters
This collection consists of 908 boldly colored and graphically
diverse original posters produced from 1936 to 1943 as part
of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal. Of the 2,000 WPA
posters known to exist, the Library of Congress's collection
of more than 900 is the largest.The posters were designed
to publicize exhibits, community activities, theatrical productions,
and health and educational programs in seventeen states and
the District of Columbia, with the strongest representation
from California, Illinois, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
The results of one of the first U.S. Government programs
to support the arts, the posters were added to the Library's
holdings in the 1940s [selected
bibliography].
Fine
Prints By Federal Art Project Artists
The Library's Prints
& Photographs Division holds about 230 fine
prints produced by the Graphic Art Division of the Federal
Art Project. Catalog records for these items can be retrieved
in the Prints & Photographs
Online Catalog (PPOC) by searching the "Fine
Prints" category
using the term "WPA." Some catalog records are
accompanied by digital images.
[Retrieve
these catalog records in PPOC].
External Collections
National Archives
and Records Administration
The National Archives holds the Records
of the Federal Art Project (FAP), a subgroup of Records
of the Work Projects Administration [WPA], Record Group
69. This collection contains the majority of administrative
records of the Federal Art Project at the federal level.
Archives Of American Art,
Smithsonian Institution
The Archives has collected extensive documentation
relating to the Federal Art Project and other New Deal art
and photography programs, including the papers
of Holger Cahill, Director of the Federal Art Project,
and the papers of many administrators, artists and photographers
who participated in these programs. The Archives of American
Art has also compiled an extensive collection of oral
history interviews, including interviews with a number
of New Deal artists and photographers--including figures such
as Cahill, Walker
Evans, Dorothea
Lange, Ben
Shahn, and Anthony
Velonis. The Archives also holds microfilm copies of
original Federal
Art Project records from the National
Archives.
National Gallery of Art
The National Gallery has
custody of materials from the Federal Art Project's Index
of American Design,
a compilation of nearly
18,000 watercolor renderings that depict traditional American
arts and crafts made before about 1890. The renderings
were created under the auspices of the Index of American
Design project, one of several Fine Arts Divisions in the
Federal Art Project (FAP). More...
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