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Depression

During the Great Depression, the government provided funding for art projects through New Deal programs like the Works Projects Administration to provide jobs for unemployed artists. Dorothea Lange was commissioned by the Farm Security Administration to document the difficult conditions faced by farmers and migrant workers, including a mother and her children living in a makeshift shelter. The New Deal art programs employed tens of thousands of artists and created over 15,000 works of art that depicted scenes of everyday life during the Depression era.

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138 views

Depression

During the Great Depression, the government provided funding for art projects through New Deal programs like the Works Projects Administration to provide jobs for unemployed artists. Dorothea Lange was commissioned by the Farm Security Administration to document the difficult conditions faced by farmers and migrant workers, including a mother and her children living in a makeshift shelter. The New Deal art programs employed tens of thousands of artists and created over 15,000 works of art that depicted scenes of everyday life during the Depression era.

Uploaded by

api-286125655
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Art in the Great Depression

What do you know about the


Great Depression?

What do you know about art from


the Great Depression?

Photo Activity
Striving for normalcy
Waiting for work
Unhealthy lifestyle
Toll of uncertainty
In the fields
Childhood interrupted
Scenes from the dust bowl

Dorothea Lange
I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as
if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember how I explained my
presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked
me no questions. I made five exposures, working closer and
closer from the same direction. I did not ask her name or her
history. She told me her age, that she was thirty-two. She
said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the
surrounding fields, and birds that the children killed. She had
just sold the tires from her car to buy food. There she sat in
that lean- to tent with her children huddled around her, and
seemed to know that my pictures might help her, and so she
helped me. There was a sort of equality about it. (From:
Popular Photography, Feb. 1960).

Dorothea Lange

Commissioned by U.S. Farm Security Administration to document the working


conditions on farms and areas around the west.
Many families had moved because of the dust bowl.

Governments Influence on Art


FDR and the New Deal: Works Projects Association, Public Works of Art Project,
Section of Painting and Sculpture, and Treasury Relief Art Project.

Governments Influence on Art


Why would the government put funding into
art?

Take your vote...


How many artists did the New Deal provide
jobs for?
a.
b.
c.
d.

457
3,749
37,829
1,928

Governments Influence on Art


How many artworks were produced because
of the New Deal funding?
a.
b.
c.
d.

43,293
2,392
932
15,663

Mexican Muralism
Reaction to leader who valued outside influences.

What do you see?

What ideas are important in this art work?

Where does this image take place?

Where do you think this artwork is displayed?

James Russell Sherman, 1938, Post Office, funded by the TRAP

Regional Art

What do you know about this painting?


What do you see in it?
Knowing what you know about the Great
Depression, why do you think the artist
painted this?

Grant Wood, American Gothic, 1930, oil on wood.

What is different about this work


compared to American Gothic?
Do you think this work was
created during the Great
Depression?
Knowing what you know about
the Great Depression, why do
you think the artist painted this?

Grant Wood, Stone City, Iowa, 1930

What lifes like THEN and NOW

Is this an accurate portrayal of Loveland today? What would you add or change?

What lifes like THEN and NOW

What would art look like if it was about Fort Collins? Denver? What are the
differences?

Objective:
Students will be able to analyze art from the
Great Depression and transfer concepts into a
contemporary context by completing the
worksheet.

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