page_title: Visual art of the United States
section_title: New Deal art (1930s)
hierarchical_section_title: Visual art of the United States / Twentieth century / New Deal art (1930s)
context_page_description: Visual art of the United States or American art is visual art made in the United States or by U.S. artists. Before colonization there were many flourishing traditions of Native American art, and where the Spanish colonized Spanish Colonial architecture and the accompanying styles in other media were quickly in place. Early colonial art on the East Coast initially relied on artists from Europe, with John White the earliest example. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, artists primarily painted portraits, and some landscapes in a style based mainly on English painting. Furniture-makers imitating English styles and similar craftsmen were also established in the major cities, but in the English colonies, locally made pottery remained resolutely utilitarian until the 19th century, with fancy products imported.
  But in the later 18th century two U.S. artists, Benjamin West and John Singleton Copley, became the most successful painters in London of history painting, then regarded as the highest form of art, giving the first sign of an emerging force in Western art.
context_section_description: When the Great Depression hit, president Roosevelt's New Deal created several public arts programs. The purpose of the programs was to give work to artists and decorate public buildings, usually with a national theme. The first of these projects, the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), was created after successful lobbying by the unemployed artists of the Artists Union. The PWAP lasted less than one year, and produced nearly 15,000 works of art. It was followed by the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration (FAP/WPA) in 1935, which funded some of the most well-known American artists.
  The style of much of the public art commissioned by the WPA was influenced by the work of Diego Rivera and other artists of the contemporary Mexican muralism movement. Several separate and related movements began and developed during the Great Depression including American scene painting, Regionalism, and Social Realism. Thomas Hart Benton, John Steuart Curry, Grant Wood, Maxine Albro, Ben Shahn, Joseph Stella, Reginald Marsh, Isaac Soyer, Raphael Soyer, Spencer Baird Nichols and Jack Levine were some of the best-known artists.
  Not all of the artists who emerged in the years between the wars were Regionalists or Social Realists; Milton Avery's paintings, often nearly abstract, had a significant influence on several of the younger artists who would soon become known as Abstract Expressionists. Joseph Cornell, inspired by Surrealism, created boxed assemblages incorporating found objects and collage.
caption: Thomas Hart Benton, People of Chilmark (Figure Composition),  1920, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.
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