Art Works Sites

Prominent California artist Jo Mora produced twenty-three cast-concrete, bas-relief busts (approximately 12" x 18" in size) for the exterior of the Monterey County Courthouse.  The reliefs appear in the spandrels between first and second story windows all around the building and in the courtyard. The work is titled "California Faces" and represents 23 types of people who were important in California history, which Mora called:   Indian Man, Indian Woman, Junipero Serra, Juan Cabrillo, John Fremont, Pioneer Man, Pioneer Woman, Spanish Woman, Asian Woman. The project was funded by the Federal Art Project (FAP), an arm of the Works Progress Administration, and installed in 1937. While we might not make the same choices of...

Prominent California artist Jo Mora crafted six bas-relief capitals for the tall pillars the main interior courtyard entrance to the Monterey County Courthouse in Salinas, California.  The sculpture depict scenes from early California history, featuring indigenous people, Mexican Californios, mission neophytes and fishermen. These sculptures were done with a grant from the Federal Art Project (FAP), a branch of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), in 1937. The building and its sculptures were placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009 and renovated in 2018.

California artist Jo Mora created five concrete bas-reliefs of historic scenes for the Monterey County Courthouse, as well as of a large female figure with a sword. The five historic scenes are mounted over the main entrance doors to the courthouse on the west side of the interior courtyard.  They are stylized representations of, from left to right, native people, conquistadores, friar and Mission neophytes, Anglo-American settlers and various athletes. The female figure is over the exterior door on the east side of the building and appears to be a stylized, classical figure of justice. This group of artworks was funded by the...

California artist Jo Mora created a sculpted pillar with several brass bas-reliefs of historic scenes for the decorative fountain in the courtyard of the Monterey County Courthouse. This and the other Jo Mora artworks on the exterior of the courthouse were funded by the Federal Art Project (FAP), an arm of the Works Progress Administration, and completed in 1937. The building and its art works were placed on the National Register in 2008.  It was renovated in 2018 and the former fountain is now a planter with drought-tolerant species.    

Gus Gay painted this mural for the Federal Art Project, part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA).  Gay was one of what Nancy Boas calls "the California Colorists" of the era. Nancy Boas notes that, "His mural for Monterey High School uses his characteristic late palette, strong on deep cerulean blue and chalky reds and pinks. The solid forms and simple architectural backgrounds reveal Gay's clarity of design." There may be two other murals in the high school whose provenance is also New Deal. More information is needed on those.

The two 2'6" x 30' panels of this mural "Children's Activities" by Lucile Ward were completed with the help of WPA Federal Art Project funds in 1938 and restored in 2001.

From the Livingston County New Deal Art Gallery website: "The Murray Hill site was visited by Eleanor Roosevelt and chosen for the Mount Morris Tuberculosis Sanatorium when FDR was Governor of New York... The sanatorium opened in 1936 and operated until 1971. The campus was turned over to Livingston county in 1973. Since that time our building and most of the buildings on the campus have been Livingston county offices. When the county acquired the sanatorium it also acquired its painting collection created during the New Deal. "After 1973 the works of art stayed on the walls in the Livingston county...

In 1934, Aurelius Battaglia painted two murals for the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood library,  "Animal Circus" and  "Animal Orchestra."   They occupy two reading alcoves off the Children's Room to this day. Funding was provided by the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), an early New Deal relief program for unemployed artists. Later, Battaglia moved to California and joined Walt Disney, animating classics such as Dumbo, Pinocchio and Fantasia. Mount Pleasant is a branch of the DC public library system.  The lovely building was paid for by the Carnegie Foundation in 1903.

In 1937, Bessie Heller designed a pair of tile mosaics for wall fountains at Mountain View High School in El Monte, CA. Heller received funding from the Federal Art Project (FAP). Heller worked in the art department at MGM Studios. Her other FAP works in the region include a mural, "The Map Makers of the World" (1939), at Virgil Middle School in Los Angeles, CA.

This 10' x 15' mural "Michelangelo in the Medici Gardens, 1490" was painted by Helen Finch in 1937 with funding from the WPA Federal Art Project.

"Characters From Children's Literature," consisting of two 6' x 20' panels, was painted by Charles Freeman in 1937 with funding from the WPA Federal Art Project.

This 6' x 20' mural "Mozart at the Court of Maria Theresa, 1762" was painted by Elizabeth Gibson in 1937 with funding from the WPA Federal Art Project.

In 1937, Myer Shaffer painted a mural, "The Elder in Relation to Society," for the Mt. Sinai Home for Chronic Invalids in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, CA. The 400 square foot mural received funding from the WPA Federal Art Project (FAP). "Shaffer used his artwork to draw attention to social crisis, this time that of eldercare. He explained in the Hollywood Citizen-News that he placed biblical figures Judas Maccabee and King David in the foreground to illustrate 'that age does not incapacitate.' Yet the mural delivered a much stronger social message; in the upper detail of the fresco...

Floor mosaics depicting a variety of images pertaining to aviation can be found throughout the Long Beach Airport Terminal. They were created for the terminal in 1939-41 by then 28-year-old artist Grace Richardson Clements. Clements was hired through the Work Projects Administration (WPA) Federal Art Project. In 2012, the Long Beach Press-Telegram reported: "For years, works of art lay hidden beneath the feet of millions of passengers who annually frequent the Long Beach Airport. It wasn't until recently, when the airport's maintenance team was restoring the terminal, that the 1941 mosaics by Works Progress Administration artist Grace Clements were found underneath...

The Kansas City Municipal Auditorium facade is decorated with three bas relief carved medallions depicting classic themes. The medallions were created by Albert Stewart in 1934 as part of the PWA construction project. Albert Stewart was born in Kensington, England, immigrated to the United States in 1908 and was orphaned soon after arriving. He studied at the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design and the Art Students League of New York as a result of the support of Edwin Bechtel. He was an assistant to Paul Manship after WWI. He taught at Scripps College, moving to California where he lived until his...

Two Civil Works Administration murals were installed at the Municipal Auditorium Murals in San Antonio TX. Titled, "Texas Basket Maker Indians at their Daily Tasks," the murals were painted by Harry Anthony De Young and Gilbert F. Neumann. The murals for the auditorium walls were removed in 1935 by the mayor after the American Legion complained they had communistic symbols.  

The oil-on-canvas mural "From Timber to Agriculture" was painted for the historic Heber Springs post office, now municipal building. "Louis Freund was commissioned for $660 to create a mural for Heber Springs, Arkansas. He visited the town and decided to construct a scene that extolled the early, pioneer life of the community. He experienced a significant degree of difficulty modeling the oxen, being forced to revise them three times before the Section approved of their rendering. Further difficulties arose concerning the angle of the axe in the man's hand, claims that it appeared limp forced Freund to revise the figure a...

""Pre-Settlement Days" is a mural painted in 1939 by Ila Turner McAfee. It is an oil painting on canvas. It hung in the lobby of the Edmond Post Office for decades. It shows the open prairie before it was opened for settlement. Buffalo and antelope graze and roam on the plains, just like we sing about in the well-known song “Home on the Range”. When the post office closed and this building was remodeled to house the Edmond Municipal Courts, the new lobby did not have a location suitable for this mural. It was moved to the City Council Chambers...

The El Viejo Building in Modesto, California, features a splendid series of murals painted by Roy Boynton.  This was originally the downtown post office and Federal Building, and the murals were commissioned by the Treasury Relief Art Project (TRAP) and mounted in 1936. The murals are arrayed high on the walls of the lobby. Boynton and several assistants painted a series of thirteen tempera murals depicting agricultural scenes in the Central Valley. Ten are lunettes and three are placed on the end wall to make a single, large mural. As one local reporter explained: "These are the scenes of the Central...

The building contains five bas reliefs by Joan van Breeman.

In 1936, with funding from the Works Progress Administration (WPA), Vera Achen painted the background to an exhibit for the "Seneca Collection" at the Rochester Museum of Arts and Sciences (now the Rochester Museum and Science Center, RMSC). Most of the works produced for the project are still held at the museum's collections. More information is needed, however, to establish the status and exact location of Vera Achen's painting today. The WPA photograph caption states that the exhibit for which Achen painted the background, was intended to depict "a Seneca Indian village group" (WPA). From 1935 to 1941, the Rochester Museum of Arts and...

In 1936 Roland Schweinsberg was commissioned by the Treasury Relief Art Project to complete a 15-foot lunette titled "Old Bennett Pottery Plant," which depicts the 1839 pottery of James Bennett, East Liverpool's first commercial potter. In 1937 the painting was installed in the post office building in East Liverpool, which now houses the Museum of Ceramics. The painting remains on public display and hangs above the door to the museum's archives and library.

Founded in 1937, the Museum of Contemporary Craft was originally located in 3934 SW Corbett Avenue. At the time, it was known as the Oregon Ceramic Studio and became the Contemporary Crafts Gallery in 1965. The studio was built with WPA labor and donated materials and was dedicated to investigating and advancing the "role of craft and design in contemporary culture while at the same time honoring the history of the studio craft movement." (Museum of Contemporary Craft) In 2007 the museum moved to a new building on Davis St. Status of the original building unknown.

According to the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), Anne Fletcher’s WPA oil painting, “Iris Garden,” was completed in 1939 and placed in the Home Economics Center (or, “Home Economics Cottage”) in Berryville, Virginia.  This building appears to have been part of, or had some relation to Berryville High School.  In 1970, the high school was set for demolition and nearby schools were permitted to take things from the abandoned building that would benefit their own schools.  A principal and two students from Boyce Elementary School took up the offer and transported some items from the high school to their own. ...

This mural "Unloading a River Barge" was painted by Ruth Grotenrath for the Hudson, WI post office with support from the Treasury Section of Fine Arts. When a new post office was built in Hudson, the mural found a new home at the Museum of Wisconsin Art in West Bend.  

Emmanuel Viviano created these ceramic tile lunettes with funding from the WPA Federal Art Project. Located at Nancy Hill School in Aurora IL, the four ceramic tile lunettes are signed by Emmanuel Vivianno. The four lunettes are: Deer, Dear and Fawn, Sheep and Wart Hog. They each measure approximately 2 feet by 4 feet. In their original location, the lunettes were set in alcoves, located above water fountains on the first and second floor of the school. The school was scheduled to be torn down in the Summer of 2017 and the tiles were relocated to a new school building. Pictured are the...

Walnut plaque created/signed by PeterPaul Ott in memory of Nancy Hill. "A Memory of Nancy L. Hill, Principal, West Aurora Schools 1903 - 1928." The plaque currently is on display in the north entrance corridor of the school. Please note that this school is scheduled to be demolished in the Summer of 2017.

Edward Buk Ulreich painted two murals for the Columbia, Missouri, post office in 1937: "Indians Watching Stagecoach in the Distance" and "Pony Express." He was paid $1,580 for his murals, commissioned by the Department of the Treasury's Section of Painting and Sculpture. After the post office moved to a new location, the murals were moved to city offices where they stayed from 1967-2004. In 2010, they were installed at the National Archives at Kansas City, located in Missouri.

The exterior of the National Archives is graced by sculptures, bas-reliefs and inscriptions. The building above ground was completed under the New Deal by the Treasury Department Office of Procurement, including the sculptures. Congress originally approved a new home for the National Archives in 1928, but construction did not start until late 1931. The foundation was laid and the cornerstone placed by President Herbert Hoover during his last weeks in office. Construction above ground began under President Franklin Roosevelt in 1933 and the exterior was completed in late 1935; an addition with more stacks was finished in 1937. The architect of the...

The National Gallery of Art on the mall is one of America's greatest art museums.  It holds thousands of New Deal artworks in its vast collections, much of it available in digital form and occasional shown in exhibits.    By far the largest New Deal collection at the National Gallery is the Federal Art Project's (FAP) Index of American Design, containing over 18,000 artistic renderings (chiefly watercolors) of historic and contemporary American arts and crafts: textiles, furniture, toys, decorative arts, industrial products, and so on. The FAP was part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) from 1935 to 1942.  This collection was part of...

Richard Ayer create two artworks on the third floor of the visitors center (former Aquatic Park bathhouse) at the Maritime National Historical Park in San Francisco, California.  One is a bas relief "Nautical Abstractions" is composed of paint on plaster with embedded rope and piping.  The other is a mural, "Tugboats". Both pieces were completed in 1939 with the help of Federal Art Project (FAP) funds.

Beniamino Bufano's brown granite sculptures of a seal and a frog were completed in 1942 with the help of Federal Art Project (FAP) funds. They sit  on the bayside exterior porch of the visitors center.

Hilaire Hiler created the massive 10' x 100' mural entitled "Lost Continents of Atlantis and Mu" that covers all four walls of the main entrance hall at the visitors center of the National Maritime Historical Park.  It is a fantastic representation of sea life that captures the imagination of visitors to this day. The method of painting was  "wax-emulsion variation of the Gambier-Parry spirit fresco process."   To save time Hiler began the work on canvas and carried it as far as possible before installation on the lobby walls.  Hiler was assisted by artists Lawrence Holmberg, Richard Ayer and Thomas Dowley. The...

The oil-on-plaster "Prismatarium" mural at the National Maritime Historical Park visitors center was designed by Hilaire Hiler to give "striking demonstrations on the relationship of color and light." It represents Hiler's fascination with color and his idea that he had found the perfect color palette. It covers the walls and ceiling of a circular room on the west side of the building. Originally, the light fixture revolved. Several other artists worked under Hiler on this mural, which was completed in 1939 and paid for by Federal Art Project (FAP) funds.  This and other murals in the building have been restored by the National...

African American sculptor Sargent Johnson created a 30 x 14 foot frieze of incised green slate on the exterior of the entrance to the visitor's center of the National Maritime Historical Park in San Francisco, California.     The work, "Sea Form Marquee," was completed in 1939 and paid for by the Federal Art Project (FAP).   Johnson also created a 3′ x 5′ ceramic lintel bas relief on the 4th floor, above the door to the "Radio Room."   The building was built as the bathhouse of the San Francisco Aquatic Park, built by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1936-39.

A huge 14' x 125' glazed tile mural, "Sea Forms," was created by African American sculptor Sargent Johnson in 1939-40 for the bathhouse of the former San Francisco Aquatic Park, built by the Works Progress Administration (WPA).  It was funded by the Federal Art Project (FAP). It sits on the bayside balcony/terrace of what is now the visitors center for the National Maritime Historical Park. The mural is partially incomplete because Johnson and other artist's walked off the job in protest against the city's plans to install a private restaurant in a public building.  

Charles Nunemaker painted a 6' x 32' oil-on-canvas mural called "Sepia Seascape" for the women's bathroom on the second floor of the visitors center  at the Maritime National Historical Park in San Francisco, California.    The mural was completed in 1940 with Federal Art Project (FAP) funds.   The San Francisco Aquatic Park was originally created by the Works Progress Administration (WPA), 1936-39.

William Zorach was commissioned by the New Deal’s Treasury Section of Fine Arts to create the statue “Benjamin Franklin.” The statue was made out of marble, and Zorach was paid $8,000 for the job. This artwork was created for the headquarters of the U.S. Post Office Department—today’s Clinton Federal Building—and now resides in the National Postal Museum (and the museum itself served as the main post office—not to be confused with the headquarters building—for Washington, DC from 1914-1986). The Treasury Section of Fine Arts existed from 1934 to 1943. It was initially called the “Treasury Section of Painting and Sculpture”; then...

Elizabeth Fulda was commissioned to make glass mosaics – 9 by 6 foot panels – to be placed over two entrance doors to the new addition to the Bird House done in 1936.  Those were never done.  Instead, her designs were used to create colored concrete panels carved by Dominico Mortellito. Mortellito's  initials are carved in the panels, but the design is Fulda's, as can be seen from her drawings submitted to the Fine Arts Commission. One panel depicts dodos and the other moas.  The panels still exist on the rear of the building – though the doors have been bricked up...

Charles R. Knight produced a frieze of Pre-Historic Animals inside the Large Mammal House at the National Zoo in 1937. They were cast in aluminum by the Manhattan Terrazzo Brass Strip Company. On the floor are roundels by Knight in marble and aluminum depicting various large mammals. Those were also carried out by the Manhattan Terrazzo Brass Strip Company. These artworks were commissioned and paid for by the Treasury Relief Art Project, which aimed to put unemployed artists back to work.