48 CRM No 4—1999

Aportrait allows some portion of

the sitter’s personality to be

revealed. In the moment that an

individual views a portrait, some

fact, a mood, or some quirk about the person in

the portrait becomes apparent. Even if the person

remains inscrutable, the observer will learn something about the time in which the work was

painted or the feelings of the artist. Through the

work of art, the silent subject has the power to

communicate. 

In 1969, the Bureau of Reclamation sponsored an art program to portray the results of

Reclamation’s efforts to “reclaim the arid West”

through the construction and management of

large water projects. The Bureau of Reclamation

became the sitter, painted by 40 artists, giving the

public numerous interpretations of the organization. As each artist sees the world differently, the

paintings provide a multitude of messages and

endless possibilities for communication. 

Among those commissioned to paint their

impression of Reclamation projects were such

well-known artists as Norman Rockwell and

Richard Diebenkorn. Each artist was given an allexpense paid tour of the project site, including if

the artist wished, a helicopter tour of the surrounding area. Much latitude was given to the

artists in their choice of what to paint; the only

requirement was that the finished piece relate in

some way to the mission of the agency and the

results of its projects. Reclamation had the

opportunity to select one or more pieces of the

artist’s work for its collection; in some cases no

work was selected. Two hundred ten pieces created under the program became Reclamation’s art

collection.1 Some 70 pieces were displayed in a

1972 National Gallery exhibit, The American

Artist and Water Reclamation. Following the

exhibit, selected pieces were shown around the

country by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling

Exhibitions Service.

Why did a federal agency recognized for its

engineering capabilities and accomplishments

commission art? In the late 1960s the environmental movement was gaining momentum, and

members were quite vocal in protesting

Reclamation projects that they viewed as detrimental to the natural environment. As the funding for these projects came from Congress, the

Bureau was susceptible to the whims of the congressmen and by extension, their constituents.

Surely one of Reclamation’s motives for hiring

artists was to improve its image beyond its traditional clients, the irrigators. The question

remains, however, why art instead of, say, community service and educational programs?

Although the thoughts behind the decision are

unknown today, there are possible answers. These

include the permanence of art—a work of art

continues to communicate long after both the

artist and the patron, in this case Reclamation,

are gone. There is also the multiplicity of readings inherent in a work of art. Although one message may dominate, there are many other ways to

interpret and understand a

painting, which allows dialog

to occur. The program organizers may have been aware of

the tradition of western landscape painting; commissions

such as these would have

added another chapter in a recognizable school of painting,

adding all sorts of secondary

meanings and messages to the

artwork. Perhaps the most

compelling reason was that

government-sponsored art programs seemed to be en vogue at

the time. One was that of the

Leslie Stinger and Bobbie Ferguson

Portraits of 

Reclamation

Campsite at

Dawn, Dean

Fausett.
CRM No 4—1999 49

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

which began its Artist Cooperation Program in

1963.

Having decided on an art program, goals

were defined. The primary goal, according to

John DeWitt, Reclamation’s program director,

was to employ “the assistance of established creative artists to convey the meaning of its programs

to the general public” (1973).2 How does the collection of paintings represent the Bureau? At least

one critic, Allegra Berrian, was positive about the

government sponsorship of artists, but she wrote

of the art itself, “Excepting the recognizable quality of the heavies in the show, there’s little real

visual or mental excitement in the work.”3

Regardless of the critical reaction, the artwork carried messages to

the public at large. The

messages can be placed

in four broad categories,

each of which contains

many artistic styles. The

first category is representational pieces of the

projects themselves; the

second, landscapes and

natural abstractions; the

third, paintings that

show the benefits of the

project, and the last,

construction. Each of

these four categories

shows a different aspect

of the Bureau of

Reclamation.

The representational pieces, such as

Billy Morrow Jackson’s painting of Shasta Dam,

(left) focus on physical aspects of the projects.

These paintings usually depict a dam or other

project feature as their main subject. Jackson’s

depiction of Shasta Dam is pictorially accurate,

showing the dam from the vantage point of a

spectator approaching the power plant at the base

of the dam. In fact, this painting is practically an

architectural rendering in its precision. This is the

type of art that one would expect to see from an

engineering organization. Its main purpose is to

describe the physical qualities of the dam, as if the

viewer of the painting were actually there, viewing

the dam. To an educated eye, this painting may

convey a great deal of information about the

workings of the project, but to the lay public, it

appears as a snapshot rendered in watercolors. 

A subtle message is advanced through the

landscape paintings. These landscapes, painted in

a wide variety of styles, generally portray some

natural feature that has been created as a result of

a Reclamation project. Alternatively, the painting

shows the project in the surrounding landscape.

Often the structure is not present in the painting,

or if it is, it is rendered inconsequential by its size,

treatment and placement in the painting. An

example of a landscape painting that does not

include the structure is Dean Fausett’s painting

Campsite at Dawn (p. 48). Here, a craggy landform rises majestically from a serene body of

water. The clouds are suitably stormy to provide

the dramatic background, and the lighting is relatively harsh, creating sharp shadows on the cliffWhiskeytown

Patterns,

Roland

Petersen.

Shasta Dam,

B.M. Jackson.
50 CRM No 4—1999

face. The tradition of landscape painting in the

West began with explorers from the East Coast.

The works created by the artists who came with

them were of grand, dramatic images of sublime,

untouched nature at its finest. Fausett’s grand

landscape recalls the first western landscape

paintings, and the landscape does not look any

different. It is as if the artist is claiming that

despite the large interventions of the

Reclamation, the spirit of the West remains

unchanged. 

The third category could possibly be considered a subset of landscape painting, but the

message is slightly different. Whereas in the landscape paintings it would be easy to ignore or forget Reclamation’s role entirely, here, either by

title or by the subject matter of the painting, the

benefits of the Bureau’s projects are explicitly

shown. Roland Petersen’s intaglio print,

Whiskeytown Patterns ( page 49), shows the patterns that form a landscape of irrigated fields.

Irrigation is clearly the main benefit of

Reclamation’s activities. Once again, there is no

evidence of the project itself, only the positive

results. 

The last category, construction paintings,

often glorify the immense effort it took to construct a project, similar to the paintings of the

Works Progress Administration in the 1930s.

Some pieces focused on the human effort, such as

Anton Refregier’s pastel drawing, Builders at

Grand Coulee, No. 9 (above). This drawing shows

two workers setting rebar in place in preparation

for the placing of concrete. A man in a welder’s

mask holds a flaming torch, while another in a

hard hat and overalls, holds the rebar in place. A

sense of dynamism is imparted to the piece by

the artist’s use of stylized swirls and quick strokes.

Other artists looked at the machinery and parts

that built the projects. These artists who focused

on the human and construction aspect of the

projects reflect the Social Realist movement, glorifying the mechanical and human feats that went

into Reclamation projects. 

While Reclamation relinquished direct control over how the artists represented the projects,

it carefully selected the artists who participated,

thereby influencing the final portrayal of the

Bureau. Aside from a few famous names, many of

the artists selected had worked previously with

the government. Some artists, such as Billy

Morrow Jackson and Mitchell Jamieson, had participated in the NASA art program. The majority

of the artists had worked with the WPA or had

taken commissions to paint Post Office murals; a

few were artist correspondents during World War

II. Thus, most of the artists that participated in

Reclamation’s art program were tried and tested.

More important is that the art was created and

that these paintings present a multitude of views

of Reclamation’s projects. To fulfill the original

goal of the program to convey the meaning of

Reclamation’s program of water resource development to the general public, every opportunity

should be taken to make the art available to the

public now and in the future.

_______________

Notes

1 For a list of the artists who participated in this program, their biographies, and their art work, visit the

Bureau of Reclamation web site and look under fine

arts programs: <www.usbr.gov/art>.

2 John DeWitt, “Reclamation and the Creative

Artist,” Reclamation Era, 59:2 (1974): 16.

3 Allegra Berrian, “U.S. Show at 2 Colleges,” The

Spokesman Review, September 15, 1974, 12-15. _______________

Leslie Stinger is attending the School of Architecture at

Yale University. She was a summer 1998 National

Council of Preservation Education intern with the

Bureau of Reclamation in Denver. 

Bobbie Ferguson is the lead technical specialist for cultural

resources, Technical Services Center, Bureau of

Reclamation in Denver.

Builder at Grand

Coulee, No. 9,

Anton Refregier.