Tag Archives: Seymour Fogel
The Evolution of Style: How Artists Are Transformed
The British novelist, short story writer and playwright William Somerset Maugham (1874 – 1965) once opined that “Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.” Maugham’s demand that artists undertake a hazardous enterprise in the pursuit of their art is constructive. Maugham was suggesting that artists should purposefully […]
The American Scene and Public Art during the Great Depression
The public art produced during the New Deal is often associated with a progressive industrial vision: the murals from the period are filled with images of stern-faced scientists at work, laborers toiling valorously in towering factories, and grand cities filled with skyscrapers that look like the spires of medieval cathedrals. That much of the art […]
Seymour Fogel and the Art of American Optimism
In 1934, the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), an agency developed to combat unemployment in America’s artist community, hired thousands of artists during the Great Depression, putting them on the Federal payroll and tasking them with creating a new kind of public art. These artists ended up producing nearly 16,000 paintings, murals, prints, and sculptures for government […]
The Rediscovery of Depression Era Public Art
Murals from the Depression era are being regularly rediscovered and, more often than not, restored. The works created for the Works Progress Administration – with their idealized representations of struggling Americans and their faith in the virtue of community and cooperation – speak to our current recessionary moment. Once thought unfashionable and outmoded, the murals […]
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