The Infinite Dividend: The WPA · Episode 5 of 13 · 42 min
An Easel in Every Town: How the WPA Launched American Modern Art
The government paid out-of-work artists to eat and accidentally helped launch American modern art. From the Public Works of Art Project that painted Coit Tower's murals to the WPA's Federal Art Project and its roughly 200,000 works, young unknowns like Pollock and de Kooning were on the payroll. Ansel Adams's parks project was a separate Interior commission.
Who's who
- Edward Bruce+1 more episodeRan the Public Works of Art Project and Treasury art programs
- Holger CahillNational director of the Federal Art Project
- Victor ArnautoffMuralist who supervised the Coit Tower frescoes
- Jackson PollockPainter who worked in the Federal Art Project's easel division
- Willem de KooningDutch-born painter in the mural division until forced off in 1937
- Harold Ickes+6 more episodesInterior Secretary who commissioned murals and Adams's photographs
- Ansel AdamsPhotographer on a separate 1941-42 Interior parks mural project
Where it happens
- Coit Tower, San Francisco, California+1 more episodeSite of the PWAP's first and largest job, the 1934 frescoes
Timeline
- December 8, 1933The Public Works of Art Project begins under Edward Bruce
- mid-1934During the maritime strike, Coit Tower murals are attacked as Communist and the opening delayed
- 1935The WPA's Federal Art Project is created under Holger Cahill
- 1937De Kooning is forced off the project by a citizenship requirement
- October 1941Adams begins traveling national parks for Interior's Mural Project
- 2010Interior installs 26 of the never-hung Adams murals
Still debated
Historians credit the project with helping seed Abstract Expressionism, but European émigrés, New York galleries and the war also mattered. Artist and artwork counts are round estimates, and Coit Tower is a PWAP project, not WPA.
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