WPA/FAP
Posters
During the years 1935
and 1943, the WPA commissioned 35.000 poster designs and printed 2 million
posters from these. These posters represent the general trend of
the New Deal's stance on the fine arts. That is that they are a graphic
juxtaposition of fine art and practicality. The idea to merge the
"fine and the practical arts", according to Christopher DeNoon, dates back
to the pre-Raphaelites in the mid nineteenth century and was certainly
present in the modernism of the German Bauhaus in the 1920's. DeNoon's
claim is supported by the fact that one of the key leaders of the WPA poster
program, Richard Floethe, was trained in the German Bauhaus.
The topics addressed
by the posters below include the Federal Theatre Project, the Federal Art
Project, education and civic activity, and health and safety. Other
WPA posters addressed topics such as the U.S. Travel Bureau, the Federal
Music Project, the Federal Dance Project, the Federal Writers project,
and World War II. in their comprehensive topicality, their innovative
use of visual vocabulary, and their obvious blending of the fine and practical
arts, these posters provide us with perhaps the most concrete conceptualization
of the pragmatic and down to earth feel of the New Deal depression era.
Click on the
thumbnail to view these WPA/FAP posters
Back to
WPA Art
All information for this section
was drawn from:
**DeNoon, Christopher. Posters
of the WPA. Los Angeles: The Wheatley Press, 1987.