• Greenpoint Hospital Mural - Brooklyn NY
    Anton Refregier's first mural assignment under the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project (WPA-FAP) in the 1930s was to paint a mural for the children's ward at Greenpoint Hospital in Brooklyn. Joining the WPA rolls allowed him to get off relief. He was paid $23.86 a week and was assisted by five other WPA artists. In an interview conducted for the Archives of American Art Refregier stresses that although he was assigned to be the leader of the mural project, the group decided to undertake the project cooperatively which was more in line with their values. In an interview for...
  • Post Office Murals - Plainfield NJ
    This early 20th century post office contains two tempera murals by Anton Refregier. Painted under the aegis of the Treasury Section of Fine Arts, the murals "Folklore of America" and "Quilting Bee" were created in 1942: "The tempera murals are by Anton Refregier, a Russian whose art appeared at the 1939-40 New York World's Fair (a 30-foot mural in the WPA Building), the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art. "Folklore" depicts icons of America, such as Johnny Appleseed, Paul Bunyan and John Henry; "Quilting Bee" captures a sense of community as the women bend over their sewing...
  • Rikers Island WPA Murals - East Elmhurst NY
    "Ben Shahn's WPA mural planned for the Rikers Island Penitentiary mess hall was rejected in 1935, the year the prison opened. Harold Lehman's WPA mural "Man's Daily Bread" was mounted there instead circa 1936 but was removed decades later. Thus in a sense, both the planned Shahn mural and the actual Lehman mural could be counted as two murals "missing" in Rikers Island Penitentiary WPA art history. Considerably worse for wear but not missing is a third Rikers Island Penitentiary WPA mural: Anton Refregier's "Home and the Family." Its presence enhances the historic landmark character of NYC's oldest structure in continuous correction-related use. In 1937...
  • Rincon Annex Murals - San Francisco CA
    The former Rincon Annex post office (now Rincon Center) has an extraordinary set of murals, 27 large panels along the upper wall of the lobby of the old post office.  They tell the "History of California" from the Spanish conquest of California to the founding of the United Nations in the city at the end of the Second World War. These murals are the work of Anton Refregier, an artist with a leftist bent and a strong streak of independence.  They are an astonishing accomplishment in terms of scale, historical vision and artistic style, which is quite unlike most mural art of...