Treasury Relief Art Project

Treasury Relief Art Project
Name	Treasury Relief Art Project
Established	1935
Dissolved	1938
Location	United States
Field	Mural painting, sculpture, fresco, relief
Patrons	Franklin D. Roosevelt, Treasury Department (United States), Federal Art Project, Works Progress Administration, Civil Works Administration
Notable people	Louis A. Simon, Edward Bruce (art administrator), Slater Brown, Lenore Thomas Straus, Juan O'Gorman
Movement	New Deal art, American Scene painting

Treasury Relief Art Project The Treasury Relief Art Project was a New Deal-era visual arts initiative created to commission and install murals, reliefs, and sculpture in federal buildings across the United States. Launched to provide employment to artists during the Great Depression and to embellish post offices, courthouses, and custom houses, the project operated alongside programs such as the Federal Art Project and the Public Works of Art Project. It involved administrators, architects, and artists who negotiated aesthetic, political, and practical concerns of the 1930s.

Background and Establishment

Established during the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt as part of a constellation of cultural relief efforts, the initiative responded to the economic collapse precipitated by the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression. Modeled in conversation with the Treasury Department (United States) and influenced by precedents like the Civil Works Administration and the Works Progress Administration, it sought to integrate art with federal architecture overseen by figures in the Public Buildings Administration. The program’s founding involved debates among proponents of Regionalism (art), advocates from the Fine Arts Section (Treasury Department), and critics allied with progressive cultural organizations.

Objectives and Administration

Administrators aimed to employ artists, enhance federal interiors, and promote narratives of labor, industry, and civic identity aligned with New Deal principles and interventions such as the New Deal art policies. Oversight fell to officials associated with the Treasury Department (United States), including supervising architects and art supervisors who adjudicated commissions within standards established by contemporaneous projects like the Federal Art Project and programs under Harry Hopkins. Selection processes balanced aesthetic criteria, past commissions, and local community interests; controversies touched on ideological content and censorship reminiscent of disputes that surfaced around the Section of Painting and Sculpture.

Major Works and Artists

Commissions produced murals, painted panels, bas-reliefs, and freestanding sculpture installed in post offices, customs houses, and courthouses in cities and towns from New York City to San Francisco, and in regions including the Southwest United States and the Midwest. Notable contributors included artists associated with American Scene painting and figures who later gained prominence, such as authors of murals comparable to works by Thomas Hart Benton, Ben Shahn, Grant Wood, and Diego Rivera in approach if not directly involved. Sculptors and muralists placed works alongside architectural schemes by designers from the Office of the Supervising Architect. Specific high-profile installations cited in period accounts appeared in locations like Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, and Detroit, often portraying themes of agriculture, manufacturing, and historical local events akin to panels seen in the New York Public Library and other civic sites.

Techniques and Materials

Artists employed fresco, oil on canvas adhered to walls, plaster bas-relief, carved stone, and cast metals such as bronze, reflecting practices used contemporaneously in projects funded by the Works Progress Administration and the Public Works of Art Project. Workshops adapted traditional methods from Renaissance art and modern studio processes to the constraints of municipal building stock and the specifications of supervising architects. Conservation considerations influenced choices of pigmented lime plaster, tempera, and oil varnishes similar to materials used in major mural programs in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Reception and Impact

Contemporary reception ranged from popular civic enthusiasm celebrated in local newspapers to artistic debate in journals and newspapers aligned with entities like the American Federation of Arts and progressive critics. Critics compared works to the murals in Coit Tower and the socially engaged paintings of Ben Shahn and Jacob Lawrence, while political conservatives sometimes decried perceived didacticism or radical content, echoing controversies that arose around other New Deal cultural endeavors. The program influenced public taste, provided livelihoods to artists during the Great Depression, and shaped interior identities of federal buildings used by communities across the United States.

Legacy and Preservation

After program termination, many works entered stewardship of the General Services Administration and later preservation initiatives by the National Park Service and local historical societies. Conservation projects have involved collaborations with institutions such as the Smithsonian Institution and state arts agencies to address environmental degradation, vandalism, and relocation issues, paralleling preservation efforts for murals in venues like Coit Tower and artworks preserved by the Library of Congress. Scholarship on the project appears in studies of New Deal art, influencing curatorial practice and public history programming in museums, municipal archives, and heritage sites.

Category:New Deal arts programs Category:Public art in the United States