Customer Reviews

1934: A New Deal for Artists

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

An interesting collection of historical paintings from a government sponsored art program during the Depression. President Roosevelt took the view that it wasn't just industry that was required to get the country back on its feet. Why not help all workers and that included creative types like writers or musicians or artists. The paintings in the book were commissioned from artists in a seven month period starting during December 1933. 3,750 artists were paid and they created 15,600 works. The Smithsonian has 180 of these from which the fifty-five were selected for the book.

The artists were encouraged to interpret the `American scene' and the book arranges the paintings as: American people; Labor; Industry; Leisure; City; Country and Nature. Most of the artists follow the regionalist style of Benton, Curry and Wood and wisely avoid any of the 'ism' styles prevalent in Europe during the first decades of the last century.

Within the confines of representational art I was pleased to see plenty of variation, like the block figures of Douglas Crockwell's 'Paper workers' or Ivan Albright's excessively fussy face and hands in his 'Farmer's kitchen' painting. Paul Kelpe, more concerned with aesthetic art concepts, managed to get accepted his very graphic 'Machinery (Abstract #2)'. There is even a nod towards Photorealism in the painting: 'Underpass - Binghamton, New York' which strangely has no credits. I thought the weakest section was Nature, the eight paintings seem rather separate from the troubles of the times but one of them, by Ross Dickinson, is a gorgeous study of the countryside (used on the book's cover) very reminiscent of Grant Wood's 'Stone City' .

Overall an interesting collection but I was disappointed the remaining 125 paintings that the Smithsonian has from the Public Works Art Project weren't included in this book, even if they were just large thumbnails.

The book is a pleasant contemporary style design, printed on matt art paper. Unfortunately the absence of an index seems a publisher's oversight. Roger Kennedy contributes an interesting seventeen page essay in the front of the book setting the paintings in historical context though I couldn't find any reference to how each artist was selected to take part in the Project.

***SEE SOME INSIDE PAGES by clicking 'customer images' under the cover.