Muskegon, Michigan.- The Muskegon Museum of Art is proud to present “1934: A New Deal for Artists” from February 16th through May 6th 2012. The exhibiton celebrates the 75th anniversary of the Public Works of Art Project by drawing on the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s unparalleled collection of vibrant paintings created for the program. The 56 paintings in the exhibition are a lasting visual record of America at a specific moment in time. George Gurney, deputy chief curator, organized the exhibition with Ann Prentice Wagner, independent curator. Federal officials in the 1930s understood how essential art was to sustaining America’s spirit. During the depths of the Great Depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s administration created the Public Works of Art Project, which lasted only six months from mid-December 1933 to June 1934.
The purpose of the program was to alleviate the distress of professional, unemployed American artists by paying them to produce artwork that could be used to embellish public buildings. The program was administered under the Treasury Department by art professionals in 16 different regions of the country. Artists from across the United States who participated in the program were encouraged to depict “the American Scene,” but they were allowed to interpret this idea freely. They painted regional, recognizable subjects ranging from portraits to cityscapes and images of city life to landscapes and depictions of rural life that reminded the public of quintessential American values such as hard work, community, and optimism. These artworks, which were displayed in schools, libraries, post offices, museums, and government buildings, vividly capture the realities and ideals of Depression-era America.
The exhibition is arranged into eight sections: “American People,” “City Life,” “Labor,” “Industry,” “Leisure,” “The City,” “The Country,” and “Nature.” Works from 13 of the 16 regions established by the Advisory Committee to the Treasury on Fine Arts are represented in the exhibition. The Public Works of Art Project employed artists from across the country including Ilya Bolotowsky, Lily Furedi, and Max Arthur Cohn in New York City; Harry Gottlieb and Douglass Crockwell in upstate New York; Herman Maril in Maryland; Gale Stockwell in Missouri; E. Dewey Albinson in Minnesota; E. Martin Hennings in New Mexico; and Millard Sheets in California. Ross Dickinson paints the confrontation between man and nature in his painting of southern California, Valley Farms (1934). He contrasts the verdant green, irrigated valley with the dry, reddish-brown hills, recalling the appeal of fertile California for many Midwestern farmers escaping the hopelessness of the Dust Bowl. Several artists chose to depict American ingenuity. Stadium lighting was still rare when Morris Kantor painted Baseball at Night (1934), which depicts a game at the Clarkstown Country Club’s Sports Centre in West Nyack, N.Y.
Ray Strong’s panoramic Golden Gate Bridge (1934) pays homage to the engineering feats required to build the iconic San Francisco structure. Old Pennsylvania Farm in Winter (1934) by Arthur E. Cederquist features a prominent row of poles providing telephone service and possibly electricity, a rare modern amenity in rural America. The program was open to artists who were denied other opportunities, such as African Americans and Asian Americans. African American artists like Earle Richardson, who painted Employment of Negroes in Agriculture (1934), were welcomed, but only about 10 such artists were employed by the project. Richardson, who was a native New Yorker, chose to set his painting of quietly dignified workers in the South to make a broad statement about race. In the Seattle area, where Kenjiro Nomura lived, many Japanese Americans made a living as farmers, but they were subject to laws that prevented foreigners from owning land and other prejudices. Nomura’s painting The Farm (1934) depicts a darker view of rural life with threatening clouds on the horizon.
Muskegon was a prosperous and booming town during the 1870s and 80s. Charles H. Hackley and other local leaders were determined to save Muskegon after the sawmills closed by making this town “one of the most distinctive cities of its size in the country.” In the next eleven years, Hackley invested a good part of his fortune towards meeting that goal. Hackley was convinced that emphasis on such public projects as progressive new schools, a library and a hospital would attract new growth. The idea of building an art museum for Muskegon was always high on Hackley’s list of priorities. Hackley died in 1905 before realizing his dream of an art gallery. However, Hackley left to the Muskegon Public Schools Board of Education, through a bequest in his will, an expendable trust of $150,000, to be used to purchase “pictures of the best kind”. By 1910, having begun with Hackley Picture Fund the acquisition of some of the most treasured and valuable works of art still in the Museum’s present day collection, the Board of Education wisely determined that a museum-quality facility should be built. They then proceeded to purchase the lots next to Hackley Public Library and began construction of a facility for their growing and important art collection. Upon completion, the Board of Education chose to honor the inspiration for the project, which, of course, was Charles Hackley, and named their newest building the Hackley Art Gallery. In 1979, ground was broken for a $1.6 million addition to the Hackley Art Gallery, also funded by the L.C. & Margaret Walker Foundation. Construction was completed in 1980 and with that, the Hackley Art Gallery changed its name to the Muskegon Museum of Art with the Hackley Galleries and the Walker Galleries. The museum’s permanent collection is the envy of many and their changing exhibition schedule is rich with opportunities for our community to experience art and artists from around the world. Visit the museum’s website at … http://www.muskegonartmuseum.org