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November 2022

The Fireside—News and Views from The Living New Deal

 

The Eye of the Beholder

Detail from the mural, “Library,” by Bernard Zakheim,1934.

Detail from the mural, “Library,” by Bernard Zakheim,1934.
Coit Tower, San Francisco. Photo by Markus Lüske, Courtesy, Living New Deal.

The Federal Art Project (FAP), (1935-1943), provided jobs to 10,000 struggling artists. They created thousands of artworks, including roughly 2,500 murals that adorn many public buildings—city halls, schools, post offices—to this day. The FAP muralists were encouraged to depict American life and culture so as to inspire and promote a national identity. But the results were not without controversy. Then, as now, America was ideologically and culturally divided. FDR proclaimed public art as a hallmark of democracy. Nearly nine decades later, the meaning of art—and democracy—is in the eye of the beholder.

 

In this Issue:

A Victory for Public Art

1

George Washington High School

George Washington High School
Designed by famed San Francisco architect Timothy Pflueger, the art deco-style school opened in 1936. The stadium, auditorium and gymnasium were added in 1940.
Photo by Robert Dawson, Living New Deal.

WPA artist Victor Arnautoff’s controversial mural, “Life of Washington,” has been a lightning rod for controversy ever since it was completed in 1936.

The 1600-foot fresco covering the walls and ceiling of the main entryway at San Francisco’s George Washington High School narrowly survived a recent challenge when some students and parents asserted that the mural traumatizes students and demanded that the school board “Paint it down.”

Historians, writers, artists and some tribal leaders defended the immense artwork, which depicts Washington among enslaved Blacks and standing over a slain American Indian. They counter that the Ukrainian-born Arnautoff, an avowed Communist, intended the murals as a thinly veiled critique of America’s racism.

Self portrait Victor Arnautoff, 1896-1979

Self portrait, Victor Arnautoff, 1896-1979
Arnautoff worked with Diego Rivera in Mexico in the 1930s and went on to produce a number of murals for the WPA. He taught art at Stanford University but was fired for his political views and returned to Ukraine. Courtesy Helfinfinearts.com.

Rather than paint over the mural, in 2019 the Board of Education voted unanimously to conceal the mural behind a curtain—at a cost to the San Francisco Unified School District of some $600,000. After the decision, hundreds of people squeezed into the school’s main lobby for a rare public viewing to catch a final glimpse of the 13-panel painting.

The 6,500-member George Washington High School Alumni Association filed a lawsuit to protect the mural and in 2021 the California Superior Court ruled that the school board had violated the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and stopped the board from destroying or covering up the historic artwork.

A few months later, San Franciscans recalled three school board members who had voted to censor the murals. Last summer, the newly installed school board rescinded the previous board’s decision. But the debate continues.

Dewey Crumpler

Dewey Crumpler
Crumpler painted the “response murals” to Arnautoff’s “Life of Washington” mural at George Washington High School in 1974.
Screenshot from Youtube video.

Following the court ruling, Lope Yap, Jr., vice president of the school’s alumni association, thanked supporters. “Arnautoff takes a real perspective on the dark side of Washington, not [just] his great accomplishments, but to say, we’re not perfect,” “Maybe it’s painful, but what’s not accurate about this?”   

“Any attempt to destroy Arnautoff’s murals has been thwarted— for the time being,” he added.

Paloma Flores, a member of the Pit-River Nation and former coordinator of the District’s Indian Education Program, disagrees. “It’s not a matter of censorship, it’s a matter of human right: the right to learn without hostile environments. Even the best intentions do harm.”  

Washington at Mt. Vernon

Washington at Mt. Vernon
Critics point to the mural’s depiction of slavery as racist. Others maintain Arnautoff’s social commentary—America’s “founding father” was dependent on enslaved labor for his wealth. Photo by Richard Evans, Living New Deal. (click to enlarge)

Conflicts over Arnautoff’s “Life of Washington” date to the 1960s when Black students at the school criticized the mural for its limited view of Black history as a story of enslavement and victimization. Their activism resulted in “response murals,” painted at the school by a young Black artist, Dewey Crumpler.

 “Murals exist to teach and to speak about our uncomfortable history,” Crumpler maintains. “Arnautoff attempted to give us the clarity of our history, as all great works should do.”

“The march of the white race from the Atlantic to the Pacific”

“The march of the white race from the Atlantic to the Pacific” 
According to Arnautoff’s biographer, Robert Cherney, this panel reveals the artist’s condemnation of the killing and dispossession of America’s First People. Photo by Richard Evans, Living New Deal. (click to enlarge)

“This high school is home to a national art history treasure,” says Yap. “Let’s protect it and learn from it.”

The alumni association is pursuing landmark status for the artworks and the high school, built in 1936 with the help of the New Deal’s Public Works Administration (PWA).

“Athletics”

“Athletics”
Detail of a frieze by Sargent Johnson. The school contains a trove of New Deal artworks: bas reliefs sculpted by Robert Boardman Howard; monumental friezes by Sargent Johnson and murals by Lucien LaBaudt, Gordon Langdon and Robert Stackpole. Photo by Barbara Bernstein, Living New Deal.

 

Learn more:
Arnautoff’s biographer, Robert Cherney, explains the “Life of Washington” murals

A new documentary, Town Destroyer, recounts the controversy over the George Washington High School murals.  WATCH THE TRAILER  (2 minutes)

Watch: Artist Dewey Crumpler discusses his “response murals.” (3 minutes)

Kate B. Littleboy has scripted several short films for the award-winning PBS series "The New Environmentalists.” She is currently working on a series of interviews with climate justice activists for the Earth Island Journal.

New Dealish: Dining with the Roosevelts

Reply


Courtesy, LOC.

First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was accomplished in many pursuits, but, according to the New Yorker, other than scrambled eggs she couldn’t cook worth beans. To show solidarity with those suffering during the Great Depression, upon moving in to the White House Mrs. Roosevelt eschewed fancy meals for more humble fare. She had hired her trusted friend Henrietta Nesbitt to oversee the kitchen. She proved herself a frugal manager. Meals were wholesome, if not appetizing, and penciled out at seven and a half cents per person, including coffee. Mrs. Roosevelt said that she and the President would be eating this way regularly. Ernest Hemingway, invited to dinner at the White House in 1937, said that the food was the worst he’d ever eaten.“We had a rainwater soup followed by rubber squab, a nice wilted salad and a cake some admirer had sent in.” The Washington Post lampooned a state dinner that featured sweet-potato casserole with marshmallows. A reporter described the food at a press luncheon (shrimp Newburg in patty shells and a prune Bavarian cream) as “abominable.” FDR knew the taste of excellent food and missed it badly. But he and Eleanor had agreed that she would run the White House and he would run the country.
With thanks to Lisa Curran Matte, tastingtable.com

Favorite New Deal Site: Does a Shelf of Books Qualify as Public Works?

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Tell Us About Your Favorite New Deal Site

Does a Shelf of Books Qualify as Public Works?

favsiteMy favorite WPA project isn’t a road or a bridge or even a school. It’s not a library, but you’re getting warmer. The Santa Monica Main Library has a gorgeous Stanton Macdonald-Wright mural that spent 40 years in storage before somebody remembered and restored it—but even that’s not my favorite. No, only if you visit the Santa Monica Library—or any good public library in the country—can you find jewels from the best WPA project of them all: the Federal Writers’ Project, which created American Guides to all 48 states. In addition to the states, forty cities around the country had guides, too, many available in inexpensive reprints.

The Federal Writers’ Project is currently, finally, up for renewal in Congress. Congressman Ted Lieu’s 21st-Century Federal Writers’ Project Act (H.R. 3054) would allocate $60 million to create 900 to a thousand jobs for writers, editors, photographers, web developers, librarians, teachers and other gifted storytellers. (If you agree, please contact your member of Congress and invite them to co-sponsor HR 3054.)

But does a shelf of books qualify as public works, let alone infrastructure? As far as I’m concerned, public works are anything that will still be useful in ninety years. By that definition, the WPA and all its projects not only meet that criterion—they’re still paying Americans back to this day.
—David Kipen

David narrates the documentary, “A New Deal for Los Angeles,” which recently premiered on the PBS affiliate, KCET. WATCH (50 minutes)
 
Send us a first-person story of 100 (or so) words describing the site and why you chose it. Submissions will appear in future issues of The Fireside! Be sure to include a photo (with photo credit). Send to [email protected]. Thanks!
 
Former book critic for the San Francisco Chronicle David Kipen served as Director of Literature for the National Endowment of the Arts under both Democratic and Republican Administrations. He teaches at UCLA and runs Libros Schmibros, the nonprofit bilingual storefront lending library he founded ten years ago. His books include Dear Los Angeles: The City in Diaries and Letters, 1542-2018 (Modern Library) and introductions to the WPA Guides to California, Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego (UC Press). His work has appeared in the New York Times, Alta and the L.A. Times, where his May 20, 2020, feature helped gin up interest in reinventing the Federal Writers’ Project: . He’s also working on the California Creative Workforce Act, SB 628. He can be reached at [email protected].