Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) Sites

"When the new courthouse was completed in January 1934, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) commissioned four of Taos’ premier artists to paint ten murals in the facility as part of the New Deal, to alleviate some of the crunching poverty resulting from the Depression... Emil Bisttram, Ward Lockwood, Bert Phillips, and Victor Higgins...would become known as the 'Taos Fresco Quartet.' The original intent of the project was to have 13 panels of murals - 11 narrow vertical ones, a round medallion over the entrance, and Higgins’ large central Ten Commandments piece. The ten completed murals were...

"When the new courthouse was completed in January 1934, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) commissioned four of Taos’ premier artists to paint ten murals in the facility as part of the New Deal, to alleviate some of the crunching poverty resulting from the Depression... Emil Bisttram, Ward Lockwood, Bert Phillips, and Victor Higgins...would become known as the 'Taos Fresco Quartet.' The original intent of the project was to have 13 panels of murals - 11 narrow vertical ones, a round medallion over the entrance, and Higgins’ large central Ten Commandments piece. The ten completed murals were...

"When the new courthouse was completed in January 1934, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) commissioned four of Taos’ premier artists to paint ten murals in the facility as part of the New Deal, to alleviate some of the crunching poverty resulting from the Depression... Emil Bisttram, Ward Lockwood, Bert Phillips, and Victor Higgins...would become known as the 'Taos Fresco Quartet.' The original intent of the project was to have 13 panels of murals - 11 narrow vertical ones, a round medallion over the entrance, and Higgins’ large central Ten Commandments piece. The ten completed murals were...

"When the new courthouse was completed in January 1934, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) commissioned four of Taos’ premier artists to paint ten murals in the facility as part of the New Deal, to alleviate some of the crunching poverty resulting from the Depression... Emil Bisttram, Ward Lockwood, Bert Phillips, and Victor Higgins...would become known as the 'Taos Fresco Quartet.' The original intent of the project was to have 13 panels of murals - 11 narrow vertical ones, a round medallion over the entrance, and Higgins’ large central Ten Commandments piece. The ten completed murals were...

A Harold Everett "Bubi" Jessen mural entitled "Pageant of Texas," created with funding from the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), hangs on a wall within the Colonial Era Mission of Nuestra Señora del Espíritu Santo de Zuñiga, at the Goliad State Park and Historic Site. This mural once hung at the Texas State Capitol building.

The Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) created a set of murals for what was then the Junior-Senior High School in Darien, Connecticut, now its town hall. "In Darien, approximately 11  artists, Robert Pallesen, James Daugherty, Arthur Gibson Hull, Remington Schulyer, Loran Wilford and William J. Schaldach among them, were employed to create artwork, most of which was done in the town’s schools (today’s Town Hall building was the town’s High School in 1934)."

"Ross Moffett studied with Hawthorne and was one of the first year-round painters in Provincetown, moving into Days Lumberyard in 1914. "Gathering Beach Plums" and "Spreading Nets," his large murals in the Town Hall entrance were painted in 1934 under the federal Public Works of Art Project of the Depression era. An easel painter and monotype artist, Moffett undertook only one other mural commission in his career." (IAmProvincetown.com)

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.  Two statues in exterior Court EE, outside the cafeteria, are by Maurice Glickman, "Negro Mother and Child," and Louis Slobodkin, "Abe Lincoln".  Both are in bronze with a black serpentine base and stand around 10 feet tall, including the base. Both are done in an Art Deco style. The statues were commissioned under the Public Works of Art Project and installed by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts in 1940. The...

The NYC Parks Department website explains that: "Although this flagstaff commemorates the 150th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, it is also known as the Charles F. Murphy Memorial Flagpole. The intricate bas-reliefs and plaques were completed in 1926 by sculptor Anthony De Francisci (1887–1964), and feature a procession of allegorical figures representing democracy and tyranny, the text of the Declaration of Independence, and emblems from the original 13 colonies. The enormous flagpole, said to be one of the largest in New York State, is capped with a gilded sunburst." In the 1930s, the sculpture was restored with...

This series of six large murals entitled the "Cycle of Science" was created for the old UNM Library in 1934 with funding from the PWAP. The murals depict, respectively, "Astronomy," "Engineering," "Chemistry," "Biology," "Physics," and "Mathematics." The series was designed to complement Willard Nash's paintings depicting physical activities. "Of the science series, Jonson wrote in his Technical Notes, "These studies represent my concept of the spiritual side of modern youth, with the idea that contemporary knowledge offers an emotional and spiritual approach. When the panes are finished I hope to have created not only an ideal wall decoration but works possessing a...

This series of six murals by Willard Nash was designed for the old UNM Library and completed with PWAP funds in 1934. The murals "originally hung for five years opposite six Raymond Jonson murals in Zimmerman Library. These two sets of large paintings were done to portray the physical and spiritual side of mankind. Nash's works depicted the physical side via various athletic activities and later ended up in Carlisle Gymnasium for a number of years. Nash, like Jonson, was a modernist, but his experiments with human form were more moderate and possibly inspired by Cezanne and Picasso" (Flynn: 25). Nash's...

The Burlington-born artist Raymond Pease was commissioned by the Public Works of Art Program to paint a mural at Perkins Hall at the University of Vermont. The mural was covered with drywall during renovations in 1992. It was rediscovered in 2019 at Perkins Hall and it will be relocated to the Perkins Geology Museum.

The Washington at Valley Forge memorial is an equestrian statue of George Washington   (1732–1799), Commander in Chief and first President of the United States (1789–97), sculpted by Henry Merwin Shrady in 1901.  It is the centerpiece of Brooklyn’s Continental Army Plaza. In the 1930s, the memorial was restored with New Deal funding, initially from the Public Works of Art Project and later by the WPA.  The work was overseen by Karl Gruppe, chief sculptor of the Monument Restoration Project of the New York City Parks Department from 1934 to 1937.  The restoration work was filmed and can be found here. The sculpture and...

In 1933, David Park painted the watercolor, “200 Men Making Trails on Cliff Face, Lands End—San Francisco,” for the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP). This is among a series that were likely meant as studies for murals depicting Civil Works Association (CWA) projects around San Francisco. The watercolor is currently on view at the Legion of Honor in that city.