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Philip Guston (born Philip Goldstein) and Reuben Kadish painted a large mural for the Los Angeles Tubercular Sanatorium in Duarte, CA, the site of today's City of Hope. Completed in 1936, the mural was funded by the Federal Art Project (FAP). It is located in the Visitor Services Center. "This T-shaped painting surrounding a doorway includes more than 30 nude and semi-nude figures depicting the sweeping progression of human life. To the left is the energy and hopefulness of youth, while on the right the scenes are of decline and disappointment. Connecting the two sections is a group of figures over...

"In the 1930's the Works Progress Administration (WPA) undertook a series of improvements including the construction of the loop road around the summit ." A 1937 WPA Bulletin reported: In 1934 Waitt's Mount in Maiden looked like a quarry-workers' nightmare. It was a huge, bald and jagged granite ledge whose slope was covered with twisted, stunted trees and tangled underbrush; probably the most useless piece of land in this section of the state. Today the Mount is a beautifully terraced park which commands a 15-mile panorama of metropolitan Boston. The park, built by the WPA, has landscaped slopes, shade trees, rustic...

In 1937, Ross Dickinson painted "History of the Recorded Word" in the Thomas Jefferson High School library (Los Angeles, CA) with Works Progress Administration (WPA) Federal Arts Project funding. The mural is comprised of four panels, each 10' by 5.5'. The panels depict the history of printing, with subjects including hieroglyphs, manuscripts, and modern printing. After six months of research, Dickinson painted the mural in five weeks. According to the Los Angeles Sentinel (one of the most influential African-American newspapers in the Western United States), "Dickinson was employed as an art teacher at the Art Center School of Los Angeles and needed...

Gladys Caldwell Fisher completed these two Indiana limestone sculptures, entitled "Rocky Mountain Sheep" and "White Ram," in 1936 with funds provided by the Treasury Relief Art Project. They are viewable on both sides of the entrance to the Byron White US Courthouse, which was originally the U.S. Post Office Building.  

Julius Woeltz painted this 12' x 6' oil on canvas mural, entitled "The Bauxite Mines," in 1942 for the Treasury Section of Fine Arts. The mural was originally installed in the Benton post office and it now hangs in the Saline County Courthouse. From the Benton Courier: "The mural's early history is profiled in a publication, titled 'Postmasters: Arkansas Post Office Art in the New Deal,' by John Purifoy Gill. "In the publication, Gill notes that Arkansas' bauxite mines were a natural inspiration for Julius Woeltz, a University of Texas art professor, who received an invitation to paint the mural just five...

John T. Robertson painted this 11'11" w X 5'2" h oil on canvas mural, "Peach Growing" for the Treasury Section of Fine Arts in 1939. From the University of Central Arkansas: "John Robertson was commissioned for $660 to create a mural for Nashville, Arkansas as a result of competent designs submitted in the Interior Department Competition. The figure kneeling on the left of the composition is a portrait of Mr. Bert Johnson, who is considered by Nashville residents to be the father of the peach industry in Arkansas. Nashville's mural is the only Arkansas mural that included a portrait of an Arkansas...

Between 1934 and 1935, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) constructed a school and arts & crafts building at the former Ruth Home in El Monte, CA. According to a New Deal official's scrapbook, "the work consisted of the construction of a frame and stucco school building, all of which is complete except for the installation of plumbing and lighting fixtures, tile roof, miscellaneous painting and other interior finishing. While there was still some $1600.00 for labor remaining unexpended, the Applicant ran out of money for materials. The project was officially closed April 19th, 1935, because of the inability on the...

The historic post office in Hamilton, Montana was constructed with federal Treasury Department funds in the amount of $100,000.  Construction began in 1940 and was completed in 1941.   The style of the building is standard design for post offices at the time, a sort of cross between Federalist and Moderne, with flat roof and white trim around windows and the front entrance. We doubt is that the architectural plan came from the Public Works Administration, as stated on the historic marker in front; the Treasury Department's Procurement Division had its own team of architects, led by Louis Simon. A New Deal...

Almost fifty years after he painted this mural, Alfred Crimi reflected on its origins and later developments: “Most gratifying was the honor I received from the City of Northampton, Massachusetts, in the fall of 1980. In 1940 I had painted a mural for the Post Office Building in Northampton entitled 'Work, Religion, and Education.' This commission had been awarded through national competition under the auspices of the Section of Painting and Sculpture, Treasury Department, Washington, D.C. Now that the building was sold, the mural was taken down to be rolled up and sent to the Smithsonian Institution where it most likely...

The criminal court building in Manhattan was constructed with the assistance of the PWA in the late 1930s, for a cost of $14 million.  Construction began in 1938 and was completed in 1941. The site, once known as Collect Pond, was formerly occupied by an 1894 Criminal Courthouse and prison – known as 'The Tombs".  That name is sometimes still used for the present building. The seventeen-story building is composed of four towers, with the tall center tower done in the step-back style popular in the 1920s and 30s. The facade is granite and limestone and the windows and spandrel form long, unbroken, vertical bands. The...