Federal Art Project

Federal Art Project. A project run by the US government from 1935 to 1943 with the dual purpose of helping artists through the Depression years and of deploying the artistic potential of the country in the decoration of public buildings and places. There were also a Federal Writers' Project, a Federal Theater Project, and a Federal Music Project, and collectively they are known as the Federal Arts Projects. They were part of the Works Progress Administration (later called Work Projects Administration, both abbreviated to WPA), a work programme for the unemployed executed as part of President F. D. Roosevelt's New Deal. The Federal Art Project grew out of a previous scheme of a similar nature—the Public Works of Art Project; this was set up to assist artists over the winter of 1933–4 by employing them on public works for a weekly wage. As a sequel, in October 1934 the Section of Painting and Sculpture in the Treasury Department was established to commission murals and sculpture for new public buildings. This was not a relief project, artists being paid only if their designs were accepted, but the following year the Federal Art Project was set up with the primary aim of helping the unemployed. There was also a smaller Treasury Relief Art Project (TRAP), set up in 1935 to commission art for existing public buildings; this was essentially a relief project, although it also employed some established artists. These schemes are sometimes known collectively as the Federal Art Projects. Thus it is possible to distinguish between the Federal Art Project (the main scheme), the Federal Art Projects (the main scheme plus the various other ones), and the Federal Arts Projects (the WPA schemes for the visual arts, music, theatre, and writing collectively). Not surprisingly, the terms are very often confused.

The Federal Art Project was directed by Holger Cahill (1887–1960), a museum administrator and expert on American folk art. It employed people on a monthly salary and at its peak there were more than 5,000 on the payroll. They not only decorated public buildings, but also produced prints, posters, and various works of craft, and they set up community art centres and galleries in parts of the country where art was virtually unknown. The Project also involved an Index of American Design, a gigantic documentation of the decorative arts in America. Almost all the major American artists of the period were involved in the Project, either as teachers or practitioners ( Barnett Newman is one of the rare exceptions). A huge amount of work was produced, but most of it was unremarkable in quality.