• Lane Tech College Prep Bas Reliefs - Chicago IL
    Among several other New Deal artworks at the Lane Tech High School are these carved mahogany bas-reliefs in the school library. These 15' x 6' reliefs were carved by sculptor Peter Paul Ott, with assistance from wood workers Conzelman, Meuzenmeier, Sarner, Ericksen and McGrory. The reliefs were completed between 1936 and 1938 with support from the WPA Federal Art Project.
  • Lane Tech College Prep High School Auditorium Mural - Chicago IL
    Among the many Federal Art Project (FAP) funded artworks at Lane Tech High school is a four-panel fresco in the auditorium, "Teaching of the Arts," painted by Mitchell Siporin in 1938. Each panel is 15' x 3'6." From A Guide to Chicago's Murals (2001): "Four vertical panels mounted between the exterior doors of the Lane Tech auditorium describe the teaching of the humanities. They were painted when the school was all male. In each, Mitchell Siporin portrays the figure of a mentor or teacher standing behind that of a young student. For literature, a wise-looking older man with his arm outstretched gently...
  • Lane Tech College Prep High School Lunchroom Murals - Chicago IL
    Among the New Deal artworks at Lane Tech High School are several frescoes in the school lunchroom, each depicting a different period of "Epochs in the History of Man." These large (12' x 14') frescoes were painted by Edgar Britton in 1937 under the Federal Art Project (FAP), a branch of the Works Progress Administration (WPA).
  • Lane Tech College Prep Auditorium Fire Curtain Mural - Chicago IL
    A 43' x 20' oil mural was painted on the steel fire curtain in the auditorium at Lane Tech High School by artist John Edwin Walley. It was installed in 1936 with funding from the WPA's Federal Art Project and restored in 1997. One commentary on the mural says this: "The imposing Native American figure called "the lean Indian," painted on the steel fire curtain of the school auditorium, was the first of many artworks to be commissioned for Lane Tech, then all male, during the New Deal years. The school had moved to a new building in 1934, and Lane's principal...
  • Madison Square Station Post Office Reliefs - New York NY
    The exterior of the Madison Square Station post office sports five bronze reliefs above its main entrance (on 23rd St.) known, collectively, as "Communication." Three were cast by Edmond R. Amateis and two by Louis Slobodkin in 1937, with funding from the Treasury Section of Fine Arts.
  • Mission High School Murals - San Francisco CA
    The school contains two 6' x 24' murals "Civilization Through the Arts and Crafts as Taught to the Neophyte Indians" and "Mission San Francisco de Asis." They were painted by Edith Hamlin in 1936-37 with funding from the WPA Federal Art Project. Betty Willey and Jay Risling assisted. Hamlin retouched the murals herself in 1973. Both murals were originally located in the school library.
  • Riverside Park: 79th Street Boat Basin - New York NY
    Located along the Henry Hudson Parkway, the 79th Street Boat Basin is a marina, restaurant and still popular Manhattan destination. It was built in the 1930s with extensive New Deal support: "In a way, we owe the existence of the entire Riverside - Fort Washington Park complex to the 79th Street Boat Basin. In 1934, Robert Moses wanted to build a whole new park from 72nd Street all the way to the top of Manhattan but he needed to find the money. He already had funding for the Henry Hudson Parkway. Since the Parkway was to have an exit and entry...
  • Riverside Park Reconstruction - New York NY
    Riverside Park is a 6.7-mile long waterside public park in Manhattan's Upper West Side, running between the Hudson River and Riverside Drive. Its origins go back to Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux,  the designers of Central Park in the 19th century.  In the 1930s the park was completely redeveloped and expanded, in part in conjunction with the Henry Hudson Parkway, with the help of the New Deal. Researcher Frank da Cruz describes New Deal involvement in the park: "By 1934, the park was in terrible shape; Robert Moses and the NY City Parks Department, using New Deal funding, designers, and labor completely...
  • Matheson Hammock Park - Coral Gables FL
    Miami and the surrounding Dade County were effectively without city or county parks until the 1930s.  The city got its first park in 1925, after which the city was devastated by a hurricane the following year. The county received its first donation of land for a park in 1929, which became Matheson Hammock Park.  In 1930, the park system got its own director and a beach park, Surfside, was added in 1932. The county began improvements on the parks using mostly convict labor and men sent by the Charity Office once the Depression hit, as well as starting a Roadside...
  • Newark Airport Administration Building Murals at Newark Museum - Newark NJ
    "Between 1935 and 1937, Gorky painted ten large-scale murals on the theme of  aviation for the Newark Airport Administration Building. This mural cycle, known as Aviation: Evolution of Forms under Aerodynamic Limitations, was among the first modernist murals created and installed under the aegis of the Works Progress Administration's (WPA) Federal Art Project. Although still engaged with the Cubist vocabulary of Picasso and Braque, the mechanized forms of these murals also reveal a debt to the work of Fernand Léger, especially his monumental 1919 painting The City, now in the Museum's collection. Léger's urban, machine-inspired imagery and vivid colors...