Asya Dodina
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American, 1879-1961 Hills, c.1935-1943 Oil on canvas 16” x 20” The Brooklyn College Library Collection Vincent Canadé was born in San Giorgio Albanese, Italy, and is mainly known for his landscape paintings. He was active during the 1920s and 30s. In this painting, a Federal Art Project commission, Canadé depicts two lonely houses. They are calmly situated under a cloud-streaked sky, surrounded by fields, trees, boulders, and a lake. The image exudes a sense of tranquility with its muted blues, greens, and browns. The gentle, undulating movement encircling the houses provides this painting with its aptly descriptive title: hills. Federal Art Project Living New Deal
Shirley Chisholm-Courage Exemplified Woven Tapestry, 2023 30″ x 42″ Gift of the artist Katy Clements has been a lifelong fiber artist, and a Brooklyn resident since 2005. From 2014 to 2020, she worked as a photographer for the City of New York. It seemed to her a natural progression to bring together fiber work and portraiture. Her works are exhibited in galleries and private collections across the United States. She won the Handweavers Guild of America Award of Excellence at the 2023 Mid-Atlantic Fiber Association Conference. This woven tapestry was made with a hand loom that has a specialized addition called a shaft-switching device that allows much more detail than is possible with a standard loom. The materials used are New Zealand wool and linen for the weft, polyester for the warp. “I wanted to weave a picture of courage, and Shirley Chisholm came to mind. She has always been an inspiration to me.” Shirley Chisholm, a 1946 Brooklyn College graduate, was an American politician who, in 1968, became the first black woman to be elected to the United States Congress. Chisholm represented New York’s 12th congressional district, a district centered on Bedford–Stuyvesant, for seven terms from 1969 to 1983. […]
American, 1897-1989 Autumn Woods, c.1935-1943 Oil on canvas 24”x 29” The Brooklyn College Library Collection Before arriving in the U.S. during the Great Depression, Stephan Csoka was considered one of Hungary’s most talented young artists. In America he worked as a housepainter with his father-in-law before becoming an art teacher at both Hunter College and the National Academy of Design. His works can be found in institutions such as the Brooklyn Museum and the Library of Congress. In this painting, created for the WPA in 1937, Csoka creates a scene of rich autumn foliage with a muted palette of orange, brown, green, and purple. Federal Art Project Living New Deal
American, 1896-1981 Flowers, c.1935-1943 Oil on canvas 30 1/4” x 24” The Brooklyn College Library Collection Vincent D’Agostino studied at the Art Institute of Chicago in the city where he was born, and later with the renowned American artists George Bellows and Charles Webster Hawthorne. While employed by the WPA, D’Agostino participated in the Federal Art Project (FAP), which lasted from 1935-1942. Throughout the duration of the FAP, approximately 2,500 large-scale public murals were produced. However, prints, sculptures, and smaller easel paintings such as D’Agostino’s Flowers eventually emerged as the division’s main focus. The FAP gave American artists an opportunity to develop and practice their craft. Federal Art Project (FAP) Living New Deal
1902-1981 End of Summer, c.1935-1943 Lithograph 24” x 19” The Brooklyn College Library Collection Hubert Davis studied with the renowned painters Fernand Léger in Paris and Thomas Hart Benton in New York. His work was widely exhibited in his own time, and he associated with artists such as Reginald Marsh and Edward Hopper. Davis illustrated his friend Theodore Dreiser’s book An American Tragedy; he also produced numerous illustrations for magazines and newspapers; and he wrote original plays for which he designed the costumes. Although he used color in a bold and expressive way in his oil paintings, the prints Davis created for the WPA were often sober or even melancholic. Federal Art Project Living New Deal
Artist: David Deutsch (American, b. 1943) Title: Rotunda Audio: Date: 2002 Dimensions: 64″ x 71″ Location in Library: First floor Media: Oil on linen Owner: The Brooklyn College Library Collection. Purchased with Dormitory Authority of New York Art Acquisition Funds. © David Deutsch Description: By painting scores of miniature, indecipherable, framed portraits in a tightly formed grid, the artist creates the illusion that the portraits are installed along the curve of a vast, architectural rotunda. The painting engages the viewer in a search for the details of each tiny portrait while simultaneously giving the impression of standing in the grandeur of a dome such as the Pantheon. His use of sepia tones further enhances this sense of antiquity. Deutsch has said, “I’m attracted to shadows, to the psychological presence cast by the face.” Related Website David Deutsch’s website
American, 1894-1963 Lewis Street, c.1935-1943 Oil on canvas 23 1/2” x 29 3/4” The Brooklyn College Library Collection Ben Galos emigrated from Belarus to the U.S. in 1913. Galos’s bustling industrial environment is reminiscent of the Ashcan School. The influence of the American Realists of the early 1900s such as Robert Henri and George Sloan is apparent in this painting, down to Galos’s inclusion of the distinctive New York streetlamp. During the Great Depression Galos worked for the WPA. Two of his paintings from that era are on view here: this one, and a very different one entitled Old Farmhouse. Federal Art Project Living New Deal
American, 1894-1963 Old Farmhouse, c.1935-1943 Oil on canvas 23 1/2” x 29 1/4 ” The Brooklyn College Library Collection Ben Galos was born Berel Goloschin in Vitebsk, Belarus, and immigrated to New York with his family at the age of nineteen. He studied at the National Academy of Design and although he exhibited his work widely in New York, he appears to have remained poor and single his entire life. Best known for his cityscapes, Galos’s work also includes portraits and landscapes. Galos painted this pristine farmhouse while in the employ of the WPA. Federal Art Project Living New Deal
American, 1913-2004 Jean, c.1935-1943 Oil on canvas 39 1/2” x 25” The Brooklyn College Library Collection Born in England in 1913, Allen Hermes came to the United States at the age of sixteen. An outstanding art student, Hermes attended Syracuse University on a full scholarship. He was also awarded a fellowship to study art and architecture in Germany. Later he served in Europe in WWII with the Corps of Engineers. In this portrait, Hermes captures the expression of a pensive young woman standing in front of a velvet curtain. She is leaning on the balustrade of a balcony, two white flowers in her hand. A peaceful countryside can be seen from a dizzying height behind her, while a stormy sky perhaps reflects her anxious thoughts. Federal Art Project Living New Deal
American, 1932-2007 In Our Time: Covers for a Small Library After the Life for the most Part, 1969 Serigraph Prints 29.5″ – 21″ The Brooklyn College Library Collection Kitaj’s screen-printed images of book covers represent a random sampling of actual ones from the artist’s eclectic, beloved library. Although born in Ohio, Kitaj traveled extensively, and studied with the London School of figurative painters such as David Hockney. In this series, Kitaj reveals the influence of Dada, and Marcel Duchamp’s notion of the “Readymade”: an everyday object declared a work of art by an artist. Kitaj’s book covers also suggest Andy Warhol’s commercial appropriations. Kitaj later referred to these prints as ” …my soup can, my Liz, my electric chair.”
American, 1891-1985 The Apple Tree, c.1935-1943 Oil on canvas 23 1/2” x 29 1/2” The Brooklyn College Library Collection Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Laufman studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and at the Art Student’s League in New York. Robert Henri was his most important teacher. From 1920 to 1933, Laufman lived in Paris where he was friendly with Henri Matisse and in contact with other artists of the Modernist movement. Laufman painted in both traditional and modern styles and consequently his work is extremely varied. Primarily a painter of landscapes, trees were among his favorite subjects, as can be seen in this lush portrayal of an apple tree in late summer. Federal Art Project Living New Deal
Twilight, c.1935-1943 Oil on canvas 24” x 29 1/2” The Brooklyn College Library Collection A woman with a basket and cane makes her way down a snow-packed path. The landscape is filled with barren trees, silhouetted against a pastel sky. Pink, blue, mauve, and gold –the colors of a winter’s twilight– are reflected on the snow-covered ground. Landscapes, cityscapes, and farmland scenes were popular themes for FAP artists who typically avoided controversial subjects. Federal Art Project Living New Deal
American, 1911-1972 Untitled (Landscape), c.1935-1943 Oil on canvas 16 1/2” x 24” The Brooklyn College Library Collection After immigrating to New York, the Russian born Pantuhoff lived in Greenwich Village where he came into contact with the emerging Abstract Expressionists. Pantuhoff, however, followed a different path. Although he first painted portraits of distinguished individuals such as Princess Grace of Monaco and Laurence S. Rockefeller, he eventually became best known for his big-eye portraits in the 1960s. In this eerie landscape, Pantuhoff uses abstract forms to create the swirling patterns of an uneven hillside. The uncanny, delicate trees evoke movement and emotion. Federal Art Project Living New Deal
American, 20th century A Day in June, c.1935-1943 Oil on canvas 19 3/4” x 23 1/2” The Brooklyn College Library Collection Although an artist from the American Midwest, one can see the influence of Impressionism in this work by Claude Patterson. It shares affinities with Camille Pissarro’s painting of 1872, Orchard in Bloom, Louveciennes, evident in the gentle way Patterson depicts his blossoming tree. Patterson’s palette of blues and greens, his rendering of depth, and his inclusion of buildings also call to mind the works of Paul Cézanne. Like Cézanne’s paintings of Mont Sainte-Victoire, the background of Patterson’s landscape is dominated by the grandeur of a distant mountain. Federal Art Project Living New Deal
This painting embody a dynamic between being fully realized abstract painting and arrested gestures in a state of undoneness. The shades of graphite and the gestures within it are markers of time and change, and place. The making of painting is a process of accumulating lessons. These factors seem in kinship with the act of study and learning.
This painting embody a dynamic between being fully realized abstract painting and arrested gestures in a state of undoneness. The shades of graphite and the gestures within it are markers of time and change, and place. The making of painting is a process of accumulating lessons. These factors seem in kinship with the act of study and learning.
American, 1888-1960 Flowers, c.1935-1943 Oil on canvas 29 1/2” x 23 1/4” The Brooklyn College Library Collection In 1913, Allen Lee Swisher studied with Jean-Paul Laurens at the renowned Académie Julian in Paris, and later in New York with Harry Mills Walcott. He is known predominantly as a portrait painter. Swisher painted this lush and abundant bouquet of wildflowers with confidence and verve. His exuberance perhaps reflects the optimism the WPA engendered in many aspiring American artists. Federal Art Project Living New Deal
Labor Unity, 1939 Artist: Philip Tipperman (American, 1916 -1969) Oil on canvas board, 16 x 20 inches Gift of Tipperman Family The Brooklyn College Library Collection The Committee (later Congress) for Industrial Organization (CIO) emerged out of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and grew rapidly during the Great Depression. The rivalry for dominance between the two organizations was bitter and sometimes violent. The CIO focused on organizing industrial workers who had been ignored by the AFL unions that supported craft and trade workers. Many in the AFL union had discriminated against African Americans and the CIO held out more egalitarian possibilities. In the background of the painting, industrial buildings loom. A Black worker, with a CIO button on the lapel of his coat, dominates the foreground. His face appears to express both anxiety and determination. By foregrounding him, Tipperman highlights the important role African Americans played in industrial unionization. The strong neck and bashed nose of the white AFL man suggests his fighting nature, while his clenched hands seem to reflect a unifying gesture or perhaps a struggle. The jagged, ominous dark clouds woven across the sky imply a sense of turmoil and potential trouble brewing for labor and […]
Labor Strike, 1939 Artist: Philip Tipperman (American, 1916 -1969) Oil on canvas board, 16 x 20 inches Gift of Tipperman Family The Brooklyn College Library Collection During the Great Depression (1929-1939) picket lines and worker strikes were a common occurrence in cities across the United States. Rising worker militancy during hard times, strikes, as well as the passage of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 known as the “Wagner Act,” fueled the rise of labor unions. In this painting, set in front of an imposing but nondescript factory, picketers evoke empathy with their facial expressions of hope and fear. A man in the foreground holds a strike placard and wears a fedora, which is different from the other workers’ caps. His confident demeanor, and what appears to be a union button on his jacket, suggests that he is a union leader. The painting style is in keeping with Social Realism — a movement that flourished between the two World Wars in response to the hardships and social and political turmoil of the time. Social realist artists often portrayed everyday workers as heroic symbols of persistence and strength in the face of adversity.
Murdered by the Company, 1939 Artist: Philip Tipperman (American, 1916 -1969) Oil on canvas board, 16 x 20 inches Gift of Tipperman Family The Brooklyn College Library Collection Five white men with expressions of fear and horror are carrying a dead Black man. The picket sign being carried by one man and another sign on the ground suggests the men were picketing one of the factories in the background. Was the brick in the right foreground thrown at the workers and then killing the Black man? Or was he killed in an industrial accident where there were unsafe working conditions? The surging shapes, churning rhythms, ominous clouds, including tornado-like funnel clouds, convey an unsettling mood of force and violence. Placing the dead African American man front and center in the painting draws attention to the fact that no group during the Great Depression was harder hit than African Americans. By 1932, approximately half of African Americans were unemployed. In some Northern cities, many whites called for Black men to be fired from any jobs as long as white men were out of work. Racial violence became more common, especially in the South, and the large tree branches in the upper […]
Picketed, Beaten and Jailed, 1939 Artist: Philip Tipperman (American, 1916 -1969) Oil on canvas board, 16 x 20 inches Gift of Tipperman Family The Brooklyn College Library Collection This painting provides a dramatic portrayal of jailed striking workers, two with bloodied bandaged heads, holding their picket signs and with facial expressions of despair but also some degree of resolve. The exaggerated forms, undulating shapes and sculpted faces adds visual force to to the painting. It’s also significant for its depiction of Black and white men working together for better wages and working conditions. Note the small tear on the right shoulder of the green jacket worn by the worker with brown hair, which resembles a paint brush—perhaps an emblem of the artist’s solidarity with labor. Also, the smoke from the cigarette seems to form the cloud hovering over the men. Historically, striking workers had risked their lives on the picket lines. Though unions often formed in response to dangerous working conditions, going on strike exposed workers to lost wages but also to the danger of arrest or physical violence from hired thugs or police that served as companies’ strong-arms.
After Work and Before Supper, 1939 Artist: Philip Tipperman (American, 1916 -1969) Oil on canvas board, 16 x 20 inches Gift of Tipperman Family The Brooklyn College Library Collection In this painting, Tipperman uses a distorted aerial perspective to focus on a sleeping worker depicted in the relative comfort of his working-class home. A steam-heat radiator, a cast aside pipe, a wooden chair, a standing lamp, a rumpled rug, and a single bed with visible mattress springs suggest a working-class environment. Tipperman in his own very unique way, is at once offering us images that are misshapen and distorted and yet also charming detailed shapes and forms that often appear quite beautiful. The viewer is able to palpably understand the effort required to maintain this man’s modest lifestyle. The angles of his body are twisted and misshapen suggesting discomfort. We share in his extreme sense of exhaustion, still in work clothes with shoes off, belt unbuckled curvaceously like a snake, tie pulled down, and shirt unbuttoned as he briefly naps before his supper. Perhaps dreaming of an easier life.
Untitled (Ships at Sea), c.1935-1943 Oil on canvas 20” x 23 1/2” The Brooklyn College Library Collection This moody painting of a fully rigged ship at sea was likely inspired by the waterways surrounding New York City during the mid19th century. These types of ships were known for their cargo capacity and speed. Federal Art Project Living New Deal
Untitled (Still Life with Chair), c. 1935-1943 Oil on canvas 29” x 23 3/4” The Brooklyn College Library Collection The effects of Modernism have evidently inspired the artist who painted this enigmatic still life. The bowl of fruit has been rendered as if the artist is looking at it from various angles, and the simultaneous, multiple perspectives of the shell and open box recall Braque and Picasso’s early experiments with Cubism. The jacket with a ruffled pocket square, and the portrait propped up against the chair-back enhance the painting’s sense of mystery Federal Art Project Living New Deal
American, 1911-1992 Magnolia, c.1935-1943 Pastel 19 3/8” x 14” The Brooklyn College Library Collection Born to an Italian immigrant family in New Haven, CT., Volpe eventually migrated to Hollywood where he designed both sets and costumes for the film industry. His portraits of movie stars such as Spencer Tracy, Betty Davis, and Katherine Hepburn won him a lifetime contract to execute portraits for the Academy Awards. This led to further commissions from top recording artists and sports luminaries, as well as major political figures such as John F. Kennedy and Winston Churchill. Volpe was twenty-six years old and practicing his craft when he created this delicate pastel while working for the WPA Federal Art Project Living New Deal
American, 1909-1974 Beach Cleaners, c.1935-1943 Color Lithograph 13 1/4” x 18 1/8” The Brooklyn College Library Collection Hyman Warsager was instrumental in setting up the graphic arts division of the WPA in New York City. Printmaking techniques such as lithography, woodcuts, and especially silkscreen made it possible to produce multiple prints, which were used as posters to promote all of the New Deal’s various initiatives and activities. In this lithograph, Warsager uses muted, natural colors to depict laborers at work, a popular Social Realist theme. Federal Art Project Living New Deal
