Art Works Sites

"Justice Tempered with Mercy (Uphold the Right, Prevent the Wrong)" by Emil Bisttram was originally installed in the courthouse at Roswell, NM. It was painted with Treasury Relief Art Project funds in 1936 and moved to its present location in 1983. "Cooperation" and "Strife" are two smaller (3' x 3') murals that flank "Justice Tempered With Mercy" to form a triptych.  

"The Pueblo Rebellion of 1680" was painted by Loren Mozley in 1936 with Federal Art Project funds and restored in 1996.  

The United States Courthouse in Columbia, TN, formerly the post office, is home to Sidney Waugh's 1941 limestone sculpture, entitled "American Eagle," and Henry Billings's 1942 oil on canvas mural, entitled "Maury County Landscape." Both were completed with funds provided by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts.

"The most significant interior space is the original federal district courtroom on the first floor. This room retains its original stained walnut wainscot and benches, and features an oil-on-canvas mural titled 'Alaskan Landscape' behind the judge's bench. The mural was the work of Arthur Kerrick, who secured a Works Progress Administration commission in 1942. The oil-on-canvas painting was not, however, installed until the 1950s. Five murals were planned for the courtroom, but only the Kerrick mural was completed and installed. Art conservator Peter Malarkey restored the mural in 1993." (www.gsa.gov)

The oil-on-canvas mural entitled "Trailing Cattle" was painted by Leo J. Beaulaurier in 1942. The mural was commissioned as part of a 1940 expansion of the 1914 building. NRHP: ""The post office also contains a mural at the east end of the original lobby (presently separated from lobby by glass partition). The mural, entitled "Trailing Cattle", was completed in 1942 by Leo Beaulaurier for a sum of $800. As suggested by the title, the mural depicts a drover and cattle herd stretching across the Montana landscape. Leo Beaulaurier was in Great Falls, Montana in 1911 and studied at the Los Angeles Art...

Provo's J. Will Robinson Federal Building houses a New Deal mural, "Early and Modern Provo," by Everett C. Thorpe, completed in 1942.  The work was commissioned by the federal Treasury Section of Fine Arts for what was then the main Provo post office.

This walnut relief entitled "The Building of Grand Crossing" by Laci de Gerenday with Treasury Section funding in 1940. It originally hung in the 1936 post office and federal courthouse across the street.

The Newport News Federal Building contains three unglazed terra cotta sculptures by Mary B. Fowler, completed with Treasury Section of Fine Arts funds in 1943. The sculptures depict local history: "Captain Newport Brings News and Aid to the Starving Colonists," "Present Day Industries," and "Early Industries."

The southern face of the federal building in Peoria, Illinois, features four limestone sculptures: "Postal Service," "Agriculture," Industry," and "Native Indian." Commissioned by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts, Freeman Schoolcraft completed the sculptures in 1939.

A beautiful, 16 panel mural titled “San Antonio’s Importance in History” adorns the walls of the Hipolito F. Garcia Federal Building (formerly the main U.S. Post Office) in downtown San Antonio Texas. The mural was painted by Howard Cook between the years of 1937 and 1939 using the fresco technique (fresco is the process of painting directly on fresh, wet plaster). Cost of the mural was $12,000. Each panel represents a different period in San Antonio’s rich history from the arrival of the conquistadors and Franciscan missionaries to the great cattle drives and cotton businesses of the early 1900’s. Mr....

Edward Laning completed a mural entitled "The Role of the Immigrant in the Industrial Development of America" in 1938 for the Dining Hall in the Administration Building on Ellis Island with funding from the WPA's Federal Art Project. "The mural was 10 feet tall by 190 feet long...The sweep of the mural’s length echoed the grand scope of its narrative" that spanned American immigration history, geography, and industrial development.  Unfortunately, "Most of the mural was ruined in the 1950s when a storm damaged the roof of the facility. Portions of original were salvaged in 1970, when Judge Jacob Mishler of the Eastern Court of New York...

The 5-foot-high fresco entitled "Country Fair, Trading, Courthouse Square" wraps around four sides of the room and was painted with Treasury Section of Fine Arts funds.

Section of Fine Arts mural "Tennessee Valley Authority" painted for the Huntsville post office and courthouse by Xavier Gonzalez, 1937. "The Huntsville mural was the largest and most expensive panel commissioned in Alabama and the only one placed in a federal courthouse rather than a post office. Gonzalez received the invitation for the panel based on designs he had submitted for a competition in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1936. He originally proposed a rather odd allegorical panel that the Washington office criticized for both its style and its lack of meaning for the people in Huntsville. Instead of making allegorical allusions it...

In 1938, Thomas Laman painted five egg tempera on canvas murals for the Eureka post office and courthouse under the Treasury Relief Art Project (TRAP). The murals depict mining, farming, railroad building, and fauna of northern California.    The 0ld Eureka post office and courthouse was privatized (sold off) in 2002 and the murals were in danger of being lost to the public. But public pressure led the   General Services Administration (GSA) to reclaim and restore the murals, which were later transferred to the new federal courthouse in nearby McKinleyville, completed in 2015.

This massive work is a large triptych on the second floor of the former Terre Haute Federal Building that now houses Indiana State University College of Business. The mural portrays the scene of the signing of the Magna Carta in 1214, and depicts the description “Through this Document Government Exists According to Law not Power”. It was funded by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts and painted by Frederick Webb Ross in 1935. Little is known about Frederick Webb Ross who was born in 1885 possibly dying in 1963. He studied with William Forsyth in Indianapolis and at the Student’s Art...

The exterior of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) building is enhanced by several works of art commissioned by the Treasury Department's Section of Fine Arts in 1938. Above the entrances are rectangular bas-relief panels that represent foreign trade, agriculture, shipping, and industry: "Construction" by Chaim Gross (1938);  "Shipping" by Robert Laurent (1938); "Agriculture" by Concetta Scaravaglione (1938); "Foreign Trade" by Carl L. Schmitz (1938). There are also two bas-relief medallions with eagles by Sidney Waugh located on the northwest corner elevation of the building (not shown here).    

The exterior of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) building is enhanced by several works of art commissioned by the Treasury Department's Section of Fine Arts in 1938. The building is fronted on the east side by two monumental sculptures, entitled "Man Controlling Trade", by Michael Lantz (1942).  These allegorical sculptures, in Art Deco Style, depict a muscular man holding a rearing stallion, symbolizing the force of trade and the government’s role in regulating it.   

The exterior of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) building is enhanced by several works of art commissioned by the Treasury Department's Section of Fine Arts in 1938. The large, cast aluminum grilles on the Constitution Avenue entrance have six images designed by William McVey portraying commercial transportation methods: Columbus's 15th-century ships, an 18th-century merchant ship, a 19th-century clipper ship, a paddlewheel steamship, an early 20th-century ocean liner, and a seaplane.

Julius Moessel worked under the Federal Art Project, and the WPA Federal Project Number One. He created an astonishing eighteen murals. The 7' x 9' panels were created for the Chicago Field Museum’s “Plants of the World Exhibit”, specifically for the collection titled "The Story of Food Plants." This project took two and a half years to complete (1938-1940), and while Moessel painted all eighteen by himself, he worked under the supervision of the Field Museum’s curator of botany. The murals were created as a way of visually showing people cultivation around the world- demonstrating farming and agriculture in various...

The First Houses public housing development was constructed by the WPA in 1935. It is decorated throughout the courtyard and on the walls here and there with small animal statues and carvings. The New York Landmarks Preservation Foundation plaque at the site says: "The paved courtyard is enlivened by freestanding and applied animal sculpture, designed by artists associated with the Works Progress Administration." One artist involved was Adolf Wolff, who created a statue of a monkey.

Flushing High School was built in the early 20th century. In 1938, the school received four murals funded by the WPA's Federal Art Project.

The terra cotta bas relief sculpture mounted above the front entrance to the Forest Hills Station post office on Queens Boulevard is titled, "The Spirit of Communication".  It was created by Sten Jacobson under the federal Treasury Department Section of Fine Arts program and installed in 1938.

The historic U.S. Forest Service Building (now United States Department of Agriculture Building) in Elkins, West Virginia houses examples of New Deal artwork: "Forest Service" and "Mining Village," two tempera murals by Stevan Dohanos. Completed in 1939, the works were commissioned by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts.

The Treasury Section of Fine Arts funded two oil-on-canvas murals for this building: "Pulpwood Logging," painted by Philip Guston in 1941; and "Wildlife in White Mountains," painted by Musa McKim in 1941.

The Civilian Conservation (CCC) helped the National Park Service reconstruct Fort Churchill in the 1930s. Fort Churchill was an 1860s army post built along the Overland Emigrant Trail, which was abandoned in 1869 when its usefulness had passed. Afterward, it fell into ruin. “On behalf of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), Senator McCarran and Congressman Scrugham secured a CCC camp to restore the historic site. During the summer and fall of 1935, Camp Fort Churchill constructed a campground and a day-use area and built a number of park buildings. Pleased with the restoration and new facilities, the DAR presented...

"Wyoming schools also benefited from the WPA Federal Art Project , which was responsible for a number of murals painted inside the buildings. Although the list of school murals is incomplete, it includes ... seven panels for the Fort Washakie dining room by Willie Spoonhunter." "The ... Fort Washakie murals are believed to have been destroyed."

This building has multiple murals, including two by Eugene Savage entitled "The Receiver of Taxes," "The Disbursement of Tax Dollars" and an unnamed mural (all pictured here). They were created 1937, likely with funding from the Federal Art Project . The building also contains several other murals painted by different artists (including the unnamed mural pictured here), all under the supervision of Savage and composed between 1937 and 1939. Covering 2,500 square feet, they "depict scenes from the European discovery of America through the settlement of western Indiana" (Indiana Business News). The murals are currently undergoing restoration, which can be seen on...

One of the results of the 1936 Works Progress Administration (WPA) airport beautification project was the Four Winds fountain and bas-reliefs by sculptor Enrique Alférez. The airport, originally Shushan Airport, was renamed New Orleans Municipal Airport, and then Lakefront Airport after the new airport was constructed. The airport was restored in a 4-year project following Hurricane Katrina damage, at which time Alférez' bas-reliefs and murals by Xavier Gonzalez were uncovered. Alférez served as the director of the sculpture program for New Orleans WPA artists.

Kalamazoo's Bronson Park featured an Art Deco-style fountain built with help from the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The fountain was located toward the east side of the park. Kalamazoo Business and Professional Women's Club held a competition, awarding the first place $250 prize to Marcelline Gougler, University of Illinois art instructor who had studied under well-known sculptor Alfonso Iannelli, designer of Pavilions at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair Center of Progress and student of Gutzon Borglum, Mount Rushmore sculptor. Iannelli was brought in to provide engineering and later Gougler, ceded the project to him. The fountain depicts a westward facing settler standing...

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) restored and recarved hundreds of totem poles in Alaska, as part of a restoration program that lasted between 1938 and 1942. The program was part of a larger U.S. Forest Service effort to employ Alaska Natives and conserve totems and Native cultural assets. U.S. Forest Service architect Linn A. Forrest oversaw the joint program of the Forest Service and the CCC throughout Southeast Alaska. Master carver John Wallace of Hydaburg carved the Four Story Totem Pole. An information page, published by the Public Art Archive, summarizes the history and symbolic meaning of the figures represented on the...

"The Four Freedoms" by Michael Lenson was created in 1942 with funding from the WPA Federal Art Project. The New York Times wrote the following in 2003 in a retrospective article of New Jersey-based artist Michael Lenson: " moved to Newark and applied at the W.P.A. office on Halsey Street ... Soon, Mr. Lenson was designing and executing murals for the state W.P.A. program. He went on to become assistant state supervisor in charge of the other muralists in the agency. By the time the federal W.P.A. closed in 1943, Mr. Lenson had created six murals and supervised the execution of 15 more...

"In 1935 the Section on Painting and Sculpture of the Treasury Department of the Federal Government announced two competitions – one for a mural painting and one for a statue to be located in two courtrooms of the newly constructed United States Post Office and Courthouse in Newark, New Jersey, which opened in April of 1936. There was a sculpture competition to select a 7-foot high bronze figure of “Justice”, with the winner receiving a sum of $6,500.00 to complete and install the sculpture. The Newark Museum coordinated the competition for a sculpture to grace Courtroom #2. The sculpture selected...

In 1934, Leo Katz painted a three-panel mural in the lobby of Frank Wiggins Trade School (today's Los Angeles Trade-Technical College) in Los Angeles, CA. Katz was assisted by artists Tyrone Comfort and Ben Messick. The side panels were funded by the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP); the central panel was completed at Katz' own expense following the termination of the PWAP in May 1934. The April 1937 issue of Los Angeles School Journal noted that an "unsuccessful attempt" was made by a first artist before Katz took over. Having "just returned from Mexico filled with enthusiasm from his study...

Franklin Classical Middle School in Long Beach, CA, is home to a mural likely completed under the auspices of the WPA Federal Art Project (FAP). The artist and date of completion are unknown, although Suzanne Miller is a possibility. Located in the school's main entryway as well as along the northern and southern stairwells, the mural "depict a landscape scene of mountains, rivers, and trees using browns, greens, and blues. The mural is painted on canvas and attached to the walls in the main entryway. The canvas is cut to fit the walls on either side of the small doorway sidesunder...

Franklin Classical Middle School in Long Beach, CA, is home to three concrete Bas Relief panels likely completed under the auspices of the WPA Federal Art Project (FAP). The artist and date of completion are unknown. The first relief is located above the entrance to the girls locker room. It "depicts the words 'Health' and 'Beauty' flanked by three female profiles, on both sides of the phrase, looking towards each other and shaking hands. On the other side of the profiles there are four horizontal sections forming a zigzag pattern on the edges. The profiles and words are painted a flesh...

From 1939 to 1942, Portland’s Franklin High School benefited from two different Works Progress Administration (WPA) initiatives. One of the projects allowed artists from the Federal Art Project, one of the five independent branches of the Works Progress Administration, to respond to a commission funded by Franklin High School students and alumni ($15,000). Stonecutter George Berry and his assistants sculpted a fifteen feet tall (with pedestal), forty-ton sandstone statue of the school’s namesake. In spring 1942, the “Statesman Scientist” was installed at the north entrance of the school overlooking the athletic field.  The pedestal includes several built-in benches as well...

Chapel Hill's historic Franklin Street Station Post Office houses an example of New Deal artwork: an oil-on-canvas mural entitled "Laying the Cornerstone of Old East." Painted by Dean Cornwell, the work was commissioned by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts.

Olive Rush painted this fresco, entitled "The Library Reaches the People," in 1934, with funding from the WPA Federal Art Project. Its current location was originally Santa Fe's public library, and is now part of the Palace of the Governors.

"One of the primary goals of the Federal Art Project was to bring different kinds of art to the American people. Sculptor Kathleen Wilson was funded by FAP to create 12 three-foot statues representing historic priests. Local teenagers were hired with National Youth Administration funds to build the shrine structures for the “Camino de los Padres.” With the support of local Chambers of Commerce, the statues were placed along Arizona roadways. This statue with its stone grotto outside of Nogales has attracted much devotion since construction in 1939. Most statues have subsequently disappeared and many of those that are left...

The Fresno Bee of 10/6/38 reported that Fresnos first New Deal art project was an 8x12 feet historical wall map for the Fresno County Historical Society in the Fresno Memorial Auditorium. Current status to be determined.