Displaying items by tag: great depression

Federal agents have recently recovered dozens of lost historic art pieces ordered and funded by the U.S. government during the Great Depression.

Investigators with the Inspector General’s office of the General Services Administration told the News4 I-Team they located a trove of Works Progress Administration artwork in the attic, basements and storage areas of some California libraries.

The 122 paintings were among an estimated 100,000 pieces of Works Progress Administration that have gone missing in the decades since their completion, according to an I-Team investigation.

Between 1938 and his death in 1956, G. David Thompson, a steel tycoon and passionate art collector made a number of sizable donations to his alma mater, Peru High School in Indiana. Thompson’s generous gifts were in honor of his art teacher, John Whittenberger, who inspired the former troublemaker to change and his ways and helped set him on the path that led to his eventual success.

Thompson graduated from Peru High School in 1913 and established his own investment banking company in Pittsburgh during the Great Depression. By 1945, he was at the helm of four steel companies in the city. With ample funds, Thompson became a fervent art collector, often buying works by unknown artists who went on to become quite established. His multi-million dollar collection included works by Paul Klee (1879-1940), Georges Braque (1882-1963), Claude Monet (1840-1926), Henri Matisse (1869-1954), Jackson Pollack (1912-1956), Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966), and Edgar Degas (1834-1917).

While Thompson made a number of donations to major museums, he ultimately gifted 75 paintings and prints, one sculpture, and 54 pieces of oriental pottery to Peru High School. The exhibition Hidden Treasures: The John Whittenberger Collection of G. David Thompson at Peru High School at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art features a portion of the dozens of works Thompson sent to Whittenberger. Works on view include pieces by William Merritt Chase (1849-1916), Salvador Dalí (1904-1989), and Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). Hidden Treasures is on view through February 24, 2013.  

Thomas Hart Benton’s (1889-1975) epic mural, America Today (1930-31) has found a new home at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. A sweeping panorama of American life, the work once lined a boardroom at the International-Style New School for Social Research on West 12^th Street, which was designed by the Austrian architect, Joseph Urban (1872-1933).

The 10-panel mural, which was Benton’s first major commission, ushered in a new approach to mural painting, turning to the reality of everyday life for inspiration. America Today portrays American life prior to the Great Depression and features the flappers, farmers, steel workers, and stock market moguls that are readily associated with the period. The mural remains Benton’s best-known work and a masterpiece of modern art.     

Benton, an American realist painter, drew inspiration for the mural from his travels around the United States in the 1920s. A glimpse into both rural and urban life at the time, America Today portrays the wealthy and poor as well as the progressive and traditional ideals that defined the era. While Benton did not receive a fee for the commission, the work opened the door for future commissions and helped inspire the Works Progress Administration mural programs that were implemented in the late 1930s.  

Bought by the insurance company, AXA Equitable, nearly 30 years ago, America Today was in storage before the decision to donate the work was made. However, the Met is currently without extra exhibition space and the mural won’t be on view until at least 2015 when the museum takes over the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Marcel Breuer building on Madison Avenue. The Whitney is headed to its own larger space in the meatpacking district. America Today is the first artwork that Met officials have confirmed for the Breuer building.