GALLERY CURRENTLY CLOSED DUE TO CONSTRUCTION
From 1935 to 1943, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) sponsored the Federal Art Project, which employed as many as 10,000 artists during the Great Depression. In exchange for a modest weekly wage, artists produced paintings, sculptures, prints, and other works to be distributed to federal buildings and other public institutions.
Curated by Kathryn Koca Polite, Assistant Curator
Curated by Kathryn Koca Polite, Assistant Curator
Immerse yourself in a 360-degree slideshow of this gallery: Virtual Tour of Modernist Strategies: Highlights of the WPA
Explore the LibGuide Resources on WPA Art put together by Ricker Library of Architecture and Art.
The University of Illinois received an extensive cache of works, which were transferred to Krannert Art Museum upon its founding in 1961.
Many works produced under the WPA portrayed scenes of everyday life—images of urban and rural landscapes, leisure activities, and industrial growth—as well as depictions conveying the grief, anxiety, and hardship brought on by economic inequity and other social injustices, typically rendered in realist, representational styles.
However, as this installation highlights, artists also explored these themes through modernist visual strategies, including abstraction, expressive color, compressed or flattened space, and a reduction of detail. Artists used these strategies to visually communicate the heightened psychological tension and anguish experienced by many during this time. Modernist Strategies: Highlights from the WPA includes prints and paintings that navigate a fractured world, convey the struggles of ordinary people, and explore the complex relationship between workers and the industries that employed them.
Portfolio: Modernist Strategies: Hightlights from the WPA [Exhibition]
This installation is featured as a newly installed exhibition space in Summer-Fall 2021, then will transition a Collection Gallery where works from the Works Progress Administration (WPA) will be exhibited with periodic rotations.
permalink: https://collection.kam.illinois.edu/prt951
