Public Works of Art Project

Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), first of the U.S. federal art programs conceived as part of the New Deal during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Its purpose was to prove the feasibility of government patronage. It was organized in December 1933 within the Department of the Treasury with funds from the Civil Works Administration and aimed at giving meaningful work to unemployed artists. It was directed by the financier and painter Edward Bruce and emphasized the “American scene” as subject matter—initiating about 700 mural projects and creating nearly 7,000 easel paintings and watercolours, about 750 sculptures, more than 2,500 works of graphic art, and numerous other works designated to embellish nonfederal public buildings and parks.

Some of the prominent works produced were the once-controversial murals by various hands in Coit Memorial Tower at San Francisco; Grant Wood’s cooperative mural in Iowa State College (now Iowa State University) at Ames; Ben Shahn’s mural designs on the theme of Prohibition; and Paul Cadmus’s The Fleet’s In, which caused a scandal at the PWAP’s 1934 national exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. The PWAP ended in June 1934, having employed 3,749 artists at an expenditure of $1,312,177. Many projects left incomplete at this time, especially murals in the design stage, were continued through the summer of 1935 under state programs funded by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, and some were finally finished in the early months of the Works Progress (later Projects) Administration Federal Art Project (see WPA Federal Art Project).