Works Progress Administration and the Federal Art Project, general overview
I was thinking about the WPA and the FAP lately with the global economic crisis. I did a bit of research about the projects and they seem really successful, they gave artists jobs and created a lot of great art.
The WPA was begun by president Franklin Roosevelt in 1935 and the FAP (Federal Art Project) added as a division of it. The FAP had two goals: first, to provide artworks for non-federal public buildings and, second, to provide jobs for unemployed artists who were receiving unemployment payments.
To qualify for work in the FAP, artists had to meet the professional standards as artists, through a committee review of their work. The committee consisted of established artists in the field. There was also a state WPA relief board that had to approve the artist’s appointment. After being selected to be on the project, artists were reviewed periodically and could be removed from a project if their financial status changed or if their work was unsatisfactory. When accepted to the project, artists were classified according to skill level, and they were paid between $25.00 and $35.00 a week, depending on their assigned skill level.
The FAP existed in forty-eight states. It maintained more than 100 community art centers which managed art programs for children and adults and held art exhibitions. In New York City there was a FAP Gallery that opened in 1936. Over the course of the FAP, there were 2,566 murals, 17,744 sculptures, 108,099 easel paintings and 240,000 prints produced. The Federal Arts Project spawned a new awareness of and appreciation for American art. It ended in mid-1943, when the government turned its attention toward World War II. However, The Office of War Information subsumed the photography division of the WPA in 1942.
Steichen, Edward. 1955. The Family of Man. New York. Museum of Modern Art
Wilkinson, Jerry. “Democracy..A Challenge- the WPA Federal Art Project Poster” Public Voices: Rewriting the History of Public
Administration: What if…? Symposiumandromeda.rutgers.edu/~ncpp/pv/issues/8-1%20Final.pdf
http://www.askart.com/AskART/interest/WPA_1.aspx?id=”http://newdeal.feri.org/library/h_1x_k.htm ” target=”_blank”>http://newdeal.feri.org/library/h_1x_k.htmwww.historycooperative.org/journals/ohq/109.2/munro.html align=”left”>www.wpamurals.com/history.html