THE NEW DEAL FOR ARTISTS

by Richard D. McKinzie ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1973

Only a few months ago Jerre Mangione gave us The Dream and the Deal (1972, p. 844), an excellent and very funky account of the trials and tribulations of the New Deal Federal Writers' Project and now McKinzie has done the same for the fine arts in this somewhat more scholarly but equally enjoyable account of the Roosevelt administration's patronage of painters, sculptors and designers. McKinzie tells you at once that his primary purpose is not to evaluate the work produced under the auspices of the Treasury Department's Section of Painting and Sculpture (TRAP) or the WPA's Federal Art Project (FAP); still less is he making an ""assessment of the effect of the government's largesse upon the psyches of artists."" Rather, this is chiefly a study of the social and political forces which shaped the unprecedented attempt at national cultural uplift and much of the book is devoted to bureaucratic inter-agency disputes, especially the rivalry between TRAP and FAP, which eventually helped do in the venture. But this is not nearly as dry as it sounds since fundamental aesthetic and ideological issues were at stake and the battles were many and vigorous -- e.g., between the classicists who wanted Greek chariots and blindfolded Justices and the modernists who wanted ""the American scene"" rendered -- and prettified. Did the American scene include portraits of buxom nudes? graphic, realistic lynchings? how about pictures of workers reading Karl Marx? And what were to be the criteria for hiring an artist? Talent? or Need? Most of all who was to decide on what was artistically worthy? Roosevelt? Harry Hopkins? Edward Bruce who headed the Treasury Section? Holger Cahill of FAP? Or perhaps Harold Ickes who was wont to ask for an egret in a swamp scene or ""more American faces"" on workmen. McKinzie steps lightly through the bureaucratic boondoggle and the censorship and policy wrangles which were never resolved, and concludes that the stimulus to the flowering of American art remains problematic even though lots of post offices from Butte, Montana to New York City received murals. In any case the final verdict on ""success"" or ""failure"" is secondary to the colorful and sometimes surreal style of the adversaries so vividly inked by the author.

Pub Date: March 1, 1973

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Princeton Univ. Press

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1973

Categories: NONFICTION