WPA Arts Project (WPAAP) Sites

Aimee Gorham created a large wooden marquetry at the rear of Ainsworth auditorium. The piece is usually hidden behind band equipment and room dividers. In danger of damage unless acknowledged as US property, not Portland Public School property. According to Barry N. Ball (2004) "During the WPA period, Gorham did a large number of documented marquetry projects, actually starting in 1933 under the short-lived Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) when she demonstrated her sculptural skills with a bas relief of Abigail Scott Duniway, shown at the Portland Art Museum in 1934. She also did watercolors of fairy tales and prints of civilian...

In 1941, an unknown artist created a marble sculpture of Alexander Hamilton for Hamilton High School in Los Angeles, CA. Completed under the auspices of the Work Projects Administration Arts Project (WPAAP), the 6 foot 10 inch high sculpture depicts a young Alexander Hamilton dressed in knee breeches, a vest and a long coat. It is located in the main entrance foyer.

The grand lobby of Borough Hall contains a series of Depression Era bas-reliefs and 13 large murals painted by Frederick Charles Stahr in 1940 under the auspices of the WPA Arts Project. The murals illustrate important events in Staten Island history. With only slight exaggeration, a local source claims that "the murals are the largest and most accessible WPA collection in New York City" (Staten Island USA)  They are, in any case, hugely impressive. There are thirteen 6.5 x 13-foot oil-on-canvas murals.  The individual titles are: Giovanni da Verrazzano Discovers Staten Island, 1524 Henry Hudson Anchors off Staaten Eylandt in 1609 Cornelius Melyn Trades...

In 1940, Helen Lundeberg created a mosaic mural, "Quests for Mankind," for Canoga Park High School in Canoga Park, CA. The mural was funded by the Work Projects Administration Art Program (WPAAP). The mosaic depicts three stages in the progress of humankind: a family of early cave dwellers, a Hellenistic teaching scene, and Renaissance intellectuals with Pisa's Campanile in the background. A second, smaller panel depicts three founding fathers signing the Declaration of Independence and three students looking at a globe. According to the school website, "the murals originally hung as five separate pieces on the outside north wall of the Assembly...

Between 1942 and 1943, Bartholomew de Mako created the mural "Justice" for Burbank City Hall under the auspices of the Works Projects Administration (WPA) Art Program. The mural is now displayed in the lobby of the City Attorney's Office. "Set against the background of the capitol in Washington D.C., we see justice holding the scales in her left hand and an American flag in the right. Beneath her are six figures representing the diverse group of citizens who benefit from our impartial system of jurisprudence. Recently restored, the brilliant pallette jumps off the canvas. Burbank officials are to be commended for...

A three-piece fresco was painted byEdwin Boyd Johnson in 1936 for Sioux Falls's brand-new city hall. The work is still extant and housed in the Commissioners Room.

Artist Hugo Ballin painted two murals for City Hall in Burbank, CA. Ballin likely received some funding from the Works Projects Administration (WPA) Art Project prior to its termination in 1943. Both murals were fully restored in 2001. "Burbank Industry" (8' x 24') is located in the City Hall rotunda. It is "a painting with multiple planes that marked the passage of time, each layer representing a phase in Burbank’s transformation from a small community of farmers to a center of film production to the capitol of the aviation industry. Although Burbank’s indigenous and Mexican past is notably absent from Ballin’s...

In 1943, Bartolo Mako sculpted a set of bas reliefs for City Hall in Burbank, CA. Two are located on the building's east and west wings, with another at the Third Street entrance. The project likely received funding from the Works Projects Administration (WPA) Art Project prior to its termination. The untitled panels on the east and west wings represent the body of peace, an eagle, soldiers, and mechanics at work on an airplane. The panel at the Third Street entrance, titled "A Tribute to Craftsmen," features workers in construction, metal working, and the aviation industry. Mako's other FAP works in the...

The Doctors Park Bathhouse in Bayside, Wisconsin, a northern suburb of Milwaukee, is adjacent to Tietjen Beach on Lake Michigan and within 75 feet of the shoreline. This former bathhouse was constructed as a Work Projects Administration (WPA) project in 1939-1940, part of a far broader county-wide park improvement program undertaken by the New Deal agency. While the park straddles Bayside and Fox Point, the bathhouse is located north of the border, in Bayside. For many decades the bathhouse provided a place to change into a swimsuit and shower off sand before heading for home. the building housed lifeguards to...

Artist Theodore Hussa, Jr. of Burlington, VT painted four murals for the Eastern States Exposition, with support from the Works Progress Administration Arts Project. Each mural depicts a major Vermont industry: Recreeation; Quarrying; Dairying; and Sugaring. Each murals measures 5' wide by 8' tall and is painted in "oil on special material." They were to be installed in Vermont Pavilion at the Eastern States Exposition in Springfield, MA, in September 1941. Their present whereabouts is unknown. A 1941 Burlington Free Press and Times article reads, "Gov. William H. Willis and Pierre Zwick, director of the Vermont art project of the  WPA, are shown...

The WPA in West St. Paul: On the west side of Harmon Park, along Charlton, there’s an old stone wall that’s part of the original WPA work to improve the park and fields. Before the 2015 rebuild of the park, this wall surrounded a parking lot near the ball fields. A portion of the wall was preserved in 2015 and you can still see the “WPA 1941” stamps in a couple places on the wall. There’s also a plaque near the corner of Charlton and Bernard memorializing the “Development of Harmon Play Field” as well as a number of stones and...

This massive 5' x 132' mural titled "History of Flight" is located in the library at Lindbergh STEAM Academy in Long Beach, CA. Jean Goodwin Ames and Arthur Ames designed the mural under the auspices of the Work Projects Administration Art Project (WPAAP); Serena Swanson, Dorr Bothwell, Elizabeth Mills, and Mary Stanfield painted it. Completed in 1940, the mural depicts aviation history "through an array of cultures, empires, countries and eras including the Turkish/Persians period, Greek Gods, the early modern period depicted through the Renaissance, and the modern era illustrated through the British colonies in the 1700s, the flight of a hot...

Russian-born sculptor Louis Zack created this bust of James Russell Lowell, the school's namesake, in 1940, with funding from the Work Projects Administration Arts Project (WPAAP). Carved from a single block of brown marble, "the bust rests on a black terrazzo base set onto a wooden podium. The black base is engraved on three sides: the left side lists the artist’s name and the date, the front states the name of the person depicted “James Russell Lowell”, and the right side names the Agency commissioning the work “WPA/So. Calif. Art Project” (LBUSD WPA Artwork Collections Assessment Guidelines Survey, p....

The Works Progress Administration built a retaining wall to support the residential properties along the length of a sidewalk on Whittle Springs Rd. in North Knoxville. The wall, as well as a WPA inscription, can be found on the east side of Whittle Springs Road just south of Avondale Ave.

Carlos Dyer, an alumnus of Woodrow Wilson High School, painted this WPA mural "Democratic Education" upon the asbestos fire curtain in the school's auditorium (also a WPA project) in 1940. At 22 x 44 feet, the mural depicts a multiracial group of students engaged in academic and extracurricular activities—including art, music, and sport—against a beach backdrop. In a nod to the city's aerospace industry, a plane flies overhead. "At its present state it is raised so that only the bottom few inches are exposed revealing the words 'Let us seek here truth in the name of liberty and peace, justice...