Depression-era Prints and Photographs from the WPA and FSA

From October 17, 2003 through January 17, 2004
Print Gallery (Third Floor) and Stokes Gallery (Third Floor)
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, 5th Avenue and 42nd Street, New York, NY 10018-2788 (directions)

Harry Gottlieb, Rock Drillers. Screen print. Print Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs.

The Great Depression of the 1930s affected the life of every American, including writers, musicians, actors, and artists, and in 1935 a portion of the funding for the Works Progress Administration (WPA) was designated for the aid of these unemployed professionals. This unprecedented largesse from the federal government employed over 250 artists, with 80 in the New York workshop alone. The artists, including Mabel Dwight, Louis Lozowick, Nan Lurie, and Raphael Soyer, were given a place to work and a salary, leaving them free to create, unfettered by financial concerns. In return, the artists created 20 to 25 copies of each print, which were then distributed to schools, libraries, museums, and other institutions around the country. In 1943, as the program ended and the New York workshop was closed, approximately 1,200 prints were deposited with the Print Collection of The New York Public Library. This exhibition is drawn exclusively from that 1943 allocation, and celebrates that unique relationship between the government and the arts.

The Farm Security Administration (FSA), well known for documenting America’s westward development, is little known for its work in the east, particularly in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Initially the government project documented the Resettlement Administration’s distribution of cash loans to farmers and its construction of planned communities, but later broadened its focus to include migratory laborers in the Midwest and West and sharecroppers in the South. Under the Office of War Information, the agenda shifted to themes of patriotism and war production. The photographs in this exhibition were taken in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut during the 1930s and 40s by Dorothea Lange, Arthur Rothstein, Walker Evans, and Russell Lee, among other photographers. They are culled from the approximately 40,000 images transferred to the Wallach Division’s Photography Collection from the Mid-Manhattan Library’s Picture Collection.

Press Release