Washington D.C.
Located at Department of the Interior Building - Washington DC (24 Projects)

Udall Department of the Interior Building: Gropper Murals – Washington DC

Detail, William Gropper, "Construction of the Dam," Dept of Interior - Washington DC

Detail, William Gropper, "Construction of the Dam," Dept of Interior - Washington DC

Photo: Maureen Budetti Creative Commons 2019

Detail, William Gropper, "Construction of the Dam," Dept of Interior - Washington DC

Detail, William Gropper, "Construction of the Dam," Dept of Interior - Washington DC

Project type: Art Works, Murals
Agency: Treasury Section of Fine Arts (TSFA), Arts Programs
Started:
Completed:
Artists:
Quality of Information:
Marked:
Site Survival:
View Project in a Separate Window

Description

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.

William Gropper painted an enormous, 3-panel oil-on-canvas mural, entitled “Construction of a Dam”.  It was commissioned by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts c 1936-37 and installed in 1940. The mural, which honors the work of the Bureau of Reclamation, hangs on the 2d floor across the south end of the main corridor.
 
Gropper was a left-leaning artist who celebrated the workers building the dam and in the rightmost panel one can read the forms as a Communist hammer-and-sickle.

The Department of Interior Museum offers regular mural tours; check their website for information and registration. 

For more information on the Interior building, its art and the artists, see Look and Perrault 1986 (below – available online). Artworks begin on p. 110.

 

Source notes

Look, David and Carole Perrault. The Interior Building: Its Architecture and Its Art. Washington DC: US Department of Interior, National Park Service, 1986.  pp. 110-172.   https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015029850214&view=1up&seq=1


Department of the Interior


 


 

Project originally submitted by Charles Swaney on March 23, 2015.
Additional contributions by Richard A Walker.

We welcome contributions of additional information on any New Deal project site.

SUBMIT MORE INFORMATION OR PHOTOGRAPHS FOR THIS SITE

Location Info

1849 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20240

Coordinates: 38.8943, -77.0425

Leave a Reply

Before leaving a comment, please note:

  • Comments allow viewers to share information with others or alert us to errors or changes in a New Deal site.
  • We are not involved in the management of New Deal sites and have no information about visits, hours or rentals.
  • This page shows all the information we have for this site; if you have new information or photos to share, click below.

SUBMIT MORE INFORMATION OR PHOTOGRAPHS FOR THIS SITE

We welcome contributions of additional information on any New Deal project site.

Your email address will not be published.