We, as artists, must take our
place in this crisis on the side of growth and civilization
against barbarism and reaction, and help to create a better
social order. -- Peter Blume, "The Artist Must
Choose," 1936
Many politically active artists worked
for the New Deal projects. United by a desire to use art to
promote social change, these artists sympathized with the
labor movement and exhibited an affinity for left-wing politics
ranging from New Deal liberalism to socialism to communism.
MORE...
National Archives, Records of the Work Projects
Administration
In the highly charged
political atmosphere of the Great Depression, left-wing project
employees not only painted, acted, and wrote, they demonstrated,
published newspapers, and led sit-in strikes to protest WPA
personnel and wage cuts. Artists from many different leftist
points of view also embraced causes such as industrial unionism,
civil rights for black Americans, and support for the anti-fascists
in the Spanish Civil War. Such political activity was common
in the 1930s, and though the number of actual Communist Party
members was small, it helped lead to a backlash from politicians
and others who claimed the projects were filled with Communists.
South
of Chicago By Todros Geller, Illinois Federal Art
Project, WPA, 1937
Wood engraving
Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, National
Archives and Records Administration
(MO 56-314)
Lest
We Forget
By Ben Shahn, Resettlement Administration, 1937
Gouache and watercolor in bound volume
Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, National
Archives and Records Administration
(MO 74-311)
A more overtly political work, Lest
We Forget recalls the plight of landless farmers in the
American South and the organizing efforts of the Southern Tenant
Farmers' Union. Marked Tree is a small Arkansas town that was
the site of anti-union violence. Ben Shahn traveled through
Arkansas in 1935 while working as a photographer for the Resettlement
Administration. Many of his photographs later served as inspiration
and studies for his drawings and paintings. The quotation on
the bottom of the page is from Rexford Tugwell, the head of
the Resettlement Administration. When Tugwell left his position
in 1937, his staff presented him with a volume, which includes
Shahn's drawing.
Mine
Rescue
By Fletcher Martin, Treasury Section of Fine Arts, 1939
Tempera on panel
National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian
Institution, transfer from General Services Administration
(77.1.54)
When Fletcher Martin won the competition
to paint a mural for Kellogg, ID's, new post office, the jury
that awarded the commission praised his social realist design
for Mine Rescue. Unfortunately,
many citizens of Kellogg did not agree, and some of them wrote
to Washington, DC, protesting the placement of the mural in
their community. They argued that the mural was unfit for a
mining community because its subject would pain those who had
lost a loved one in an accident. Government officials initially
insisted on Martin's design but eventually asked him to redesign
the mural after soliciting suggestions from the community. His
inoffensive substitute, Discovery,
shows two excited prospectors at the moment they discovered
a local mine.
