James Michael Newell Sites

An enormous mural called The Evolution of Western Civilization is located in the library of the former Evander Childs High School. The Federal Arts Project (FAP) of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) commissioned the mural cycle in 1935 and it was completed in 1938. It is true fresco, rather than a painting, and covers 1,400 square feet.   (https://newdeal.feri.org) A film made by the WPA depicts the creation of the mural by artist James Michael Newell, aided by students at the high school. It can be viewed on the Living New Deal video page. The murals have generated significant controversy over the years, as discussed in...

Artist James Michael Newell painted this large multi-panel mural with WPA Federal Arts Project funding in 1938. The murals depict the "Evolution of Western Civilization." The murals begin with "primitive man building his society" and end with scenes from 1930s America. "When it was completed, Newell’s progressive mural was well received. It won top honors in the Architectural League’s fiftieth annual exhibition in 1936 and it was included in the Museum of Modern Art’s “New Horizons of American Art” show featuring art commissioned under the Federal Art Project.  By the late 1960s, however, in the crucible of the civil rights movement,...

The former Des Plaines post office and many other post offices, after having been commissioned by the WPA to create jobs, also lent their walls to the artists of the FAP, which commissioned around 1,200 murals and 300 sculptures for the public buildings. The citizens of Des Plaines and their post office got the work of James Michael Newell, born as James Erbin Newell in 1900 Carnegie, Pennsylvania2. Before his work in the FAP, Newell was a marine fighting in WW1 at the age of eighteen5. Afterwards, his colonel recommended him for a scholarship to study abroad in Paris, where he...

"James Newell had produced several public murals by 1940 when the U.S. Treasury Department's Section of Fine Arts commissioned him to create a mural for the post office in Dolgeville, New York. He researched the history of Dolgeville before designing a mural for the post office. As he read about the Mohawk Valley, he wrote that he had found “some of the most interesting and exciting material I have ever looked into.” He decided to paint a scene of an abolitionist farmer helping escaped slaves as day breaks at Brockett Farm, one of the two Underground Railroad stops near Dolgeville....

The Stewart Lee Udall Department of the Interior building contains one of the largest collections of New Deal art in Washington DC by some of the finest American artists of the time. James Michael Newell painted two murals, "Insular Possession: Virgin Islands" and "Insular Possession: Alaska," in 1939, with funding from the Treasury Section of Fine Arts.  They depict the work of the Office of Insular Affairs, one of many agencies within the Department of Interior, and hang on the 6th floor north of the elevator lobby. The Department of Interior Museum offers regular mural tours; check their website for information and registration.  For...