Federal art projects
Several programs supporting artists during the economic depression of the 1930s and early 1940s. The most important of these was the Federal Art Project (FAP) of the Works Progress Administration (later, the Works Projects Administration, both abbreviated to WPA). The federal art projects represent the only sustained support ever offered to artists by the U.S. government. While the financial assistance proved decisive to many individual artists, the programs also had a pronounced cultural effect. Even as paychecks gave artists dignity as workers in society, the projects’ communal aspects brought them together, resulting in cross-fertilization of ideas and enhanced creativity. There were major exceptions—artists who did not need or refused to accept government aid—but most of the period’s major artists participated, as did thousands of lesser names and the majority of younger artists later prominent as ... ...
Access to the complete content on Oxford Reference requires a subscription or purchase. Public users are able to search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter without a subscription.
Please subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you have purchased a print title that contains an access token, please see the token for information about how to register your code.
For questions on access or troubleshooting, please check our FAQs, and if you can''t find the answer there, please contact us.
