All along the watchtower

Het SF MOMA heeft een prachtige collectie - zie deze foto's - maar de meest indrukwekkende kunstwerken hier vond ik tot nu toe toch de muurschilderingen in de Coit Tower. Ze zijn ontstaan in de jaren '30, als onderdeel van een overheidsproject, om door de economische crisis getroffen kunstenaars aan werk te helpen. Onder invloed en supervisie van Diego Rivera maakte een groep muurschilders een portret van Amerika - het land van belofte en het land van de cynische plutocraten. Hoe lang zal het duren voor er weer zulke projecten worden opgestart? De tijd is er rijp voor. Nog twee dagen tot de verkiezingen.

New Deal Art During the Great Depression

On May 6, 1935, the Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.) was created to help provide economic relief to the citizens of the United States who were suffering through the Great Depression. The artistic community had already become inspired during the 1920s and '30s by the revitalization of the Italian Renaissance fresco style by the inspired creations of Mexican muralists Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueriros. Certain visionary U.S. politicians decided to combine the creativity of the new art movements with the values of the American people. The Federal Art Project was one of the divisions of the W.P.A. created under Federal Project One. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had made several attempts prior to the F.A.P. to provide employment for artists on relief, namely the Public Works of Art Project (P.W.A.P.) which operated from 1933 to 1934 and the Treasury Department Section of Painting and Sculpture which was created in 1934 after the demise of the P.W.A.P. However, it was the F.A.P. which provided the widest reach, creating over 5,000 jobs for artists and producing over 225,000 works of art for the American people.

It is this legacy of the thousands of workers who labored at their craft for little money but great pride which we have to inspire us today. Although many of these works of art have been destroyed or stolen, those that remain must be preserved. They stand as a reminder of a time in our country’s history when dreams were not allowed to be destroyed by economic disaster.

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