1 10 4 https://openvalley.org/files/original/541301d3a77e08152d6a3ac5f2229df9.jpg fca3395af129292b3613945e9ed13360 https://openvalley.org/files/original/008588f1454011311b620e3969bc8cb3.jpg a7a70632703c69d6cee5802b12aa57af Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource New Deal Gallery Description An account of the resource This collection of more than 200 paintings owes its existence to two primary causes: allocations from the Federal Art Project to a New York state tuberculosis sanatorium located at Mt. Morris--the landscapes and still lifes were thought to be restful--and to the committed volunteers who helped preserve the paintings after the hospital closed. For several decades the canvases were stored in non-climate-controlled basements; it appears that doctors and staff removed at least three dozen works as "keepsakes." Despite the seeming tranquility of the paintings, they were created by artists primarily from New York City whose background was more political and aesthetically adventurous than this rural location would indicate. <a href="https://openvalley.org/exhibits/show/green-new-deal/about" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Follow this hyperlink to a short introduction to the New Deal Gallery collection</a>. We're grateful to the Genesee Valley Council on the Arts for access to their collection, which has been re-photographed and appears here at two resolutions: a cropped, web-friendly file size of around 1 MB; and a high-resolution file including the painting's frame. Items in this collection were created according to a consistent format: a short description of each painting in formal terms, followed by a biography of each artist. Where possible we have supplied hyperlinks relevant to their lives and to other examples of their art. In order to better view them using the Omeka program, click on the "View All" option at the bottom of this page to access various sorting options. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1935-1940 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Cooper, Ken (project director) Ritz, Abigail (photography and project assistant) Additional research: Justin Anderson, Jessica Apthorpe, Jay Bang, Kristopher Bangsil, Julia Caldwell, Sydney Cannioto, Sabrina Chan, Paige Closser, Victoria Domon, Elana Evenden, Yadelin Fernandez, Michael Griffin, Madison Jackson, Niamh McCrohan, Ben Michalak, Ricky Noel, Elizabeth Ramsay, Skye Rose, Samantha Schmeer, John Serbalik, Marianna Sheedy, Emily Spina, Alison Stern, Ravenna VanOstrand, and Nicholas Vanamee. Special thanks to: Deborah Bump, Mark Calicchia, Elizabeth Harris, Melissa Moody, Rebecca Lomuto, and Mai Sato. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as photograph, map, drawing, painting, etc., and any additional data Wood engraving Physical Dimensions The actual physical size of the original image Image: 8 x 6 1/2 in. Sheet: 11 1/2 x 8 3/4 in. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource jpeg, 990 KB jpeg, 996 KB Title A name given to the resource Cumberland Checkers Description An account of the resource About the Artist: Born in Milwaukee, WI, Schardt studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and then the Art Students League in New York. His works were exhibited at the Federal Gallery and the Municipal Art Gallery. Beginning in the 1935 Schardt began working for the Federal Art Project in a variety of roles: printmaker, allocations administrator, facilitator in the Poster Division; he oversaw the WPA demonstration exhibits at the 1939 World’s Fair. During this period Schardt and his wife, the WPA artist Nene Vibber, shared a flat with Jackson Pollock. Schardt’s background in printmaking and administrative capacities often extended beyond the galleries. In the late 1930s and early ‘40s he worked for the National Youth Administration (NYA) at its Art Production Unit, where students learned about commercial art while creating posters for the Farm Security Administration (FSA) and military recruiters (“NYA Youth”). After World War II, his friend Jackson Pollock mentions Schardt working at “silkscreen printing (cosmetics) on a big skale [sic]” (Savig 192). He also continued to mentor young artists via lessons at the Brooklyn Musuem. 4 works at <a href="https://americanart.si.edu/artist/bernard-schardt-4288" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Smithsonian American Art Museum</a>. 4 works at <a href="https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.33966.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">National Gallery of Art</a>. 1 work at Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2 works at the Brooklyn Museum. 3 more images at <a href="https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/federal-art-project-photographic-division-collection-5467/series-1/box-20-folder-29" target="_blank" rel="noopener">FAP</a>. Sources Consulted: University of Michigan Museum of Art, The Federal Art Project : American Prints from the 1930s in the Collection of the University of Michigan Museum of Art (University of Michigan Museum of Art, 1985); “NYA Youths Design Air Corps Posters,” Brooklyn Eagle 24 Aug. 1941: 6A; Mary Savig, ed., Pen to Paper: Artists’ Handwritten Letters from the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art (Princeton Architectural Press, 2016). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Schardt, Bernard P., 1904-1979 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Federal Art Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1935-1942 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived New Deal Museum, Mount Morris NY Object #FA 1490 Bernard P. Schardt Federal Art Project Games New Deal Gallery woodcut https://openvalley.org/files/original/68409ae3ea632f36924d9bd66b5029f4.jpg 87c8b532522d7d1a85d5f605c6442879 https://openvalley.org/files/original/a0655f04edb1c502cd03811d653f2575.jpg 4062e5fe89aa2f2937827ec04856f246 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource New Deal Gallery Description An account of the resource This collection of more than 200 paintings owes its existence to two primary causes: allocations from the Federal Art Project to a New York state tuberculosis sanatorium located at Mt. Morris--the landscapes and still lifes were thought to be restful--and to the committed volunteers who helped preserve the paintings after the hospital closed. For several decades the canvases were stored in non-climate-controlled basements; it appears that doctors and staff removed at least three dozen works as "keepsakes." Despite the seeming tranquility of the paintings, they were created by artists primarily from New York City whose background was more political and aesthetically adventurous than this rural location would indicate. <a href="https://openvalley.org/exhibits/show/green-new-deal/about" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Follow this hyperlink to a short introduction to the New Deal Gallery collection</a>. We're grateful to the Genesee Valley Council on the Arts for access to their collection, which has been re-photographed and appears here at two resolutions: a cropped, web-friendly file size of around 1 MB; and a high-resolution file including the painting's frame. Items in this collection were created according to a consistent format: a short description of each painting in formal terms, followed by a biography of each artist. Where possible we have supplied hyperlinks relevant to their lives and to other examples of their art. In order to better view them using the Omeka program, click on the "View All" option at the bottom of this page to access various sorting options. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1935-1940 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Cooper, Ken (project director) Ritz, Abigail (photography and project assistant) Additional research: Justin Anderson, Jessica Apthorpe, Jay Bang, Kristopher Bangsil, Julia Caldwell, Sydney Cannioto, Sabrina Chan, Paige Closser, Victoria Domon, Elana Evenden, Yadelin Fernandez, Michael Griffin, Madison Jackson, Niamh McCrohan, Ben Michalak, Ricky Noel, Elizabeth Ramsay, Skye Rose, Samantha Schmeer, John Serbalik, Marianna Sheedy, Emily Spina, Alison Stern, Ravenna VanOstrand, and Nicholas Vanamee. Special thanks to: Deborah Bump, Mark Calicchia, Elizabeth Harris, Melissa Moody, Rebecca Lomuto, and Mai Sato. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as photograph, map, drawing, painting, etc., and any additional data Wood engraving print Physical Dimensions The actual physical size of the original image 7 7/8 x 5 7/8 in. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Fields in Spring Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Weissbuch, Oscar (1904-1948) Description An account of the resource From an elevated perspective we look into a pleasingly enclosed, bowl-shaped valley; agricultural plantings emphasize the land’s underlaying contours. An arboreal line runs diagonally across the property. In the middle ground, a small house and attached shed is tucked into one cluster of trees, that of a presumed farmer returning home. Weissbuch’s curvilinear composition is extended to mountains in the distance and a sky full of clouds. In this and other prints Weissbuch seems to illustrate the “American Scene” of regional artists of the 1930s, some of whom “chose to focus on rural subject matter, preferring images of the countryside and scenes that depicted a simpler side of life” (Viso). “Fields in Spring” was honored at the 12th Annual Exhibition for American Graphic Artists, Philadelphia, in 1938. An appreciative reviewer praised its “expert differentiation of varied qualities of earth and foliage,” which again might be taken to reference the print’s rural setting (Lewis). But he also was praising the woodcut’s variety of pattern for its own sake—at least a dozen different recurring ones to be observed. Weissbuch’s later <a href="https://munson.emuseum.com/objects/1932/backyard-in-summer?ctx=4715703bae747f0b36f946b02d2517711b4029c3&idx=3" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“Backyard in Summer”</a> (1942) suggests that, many years earlier, the artist was intrigued by tensions between representation and underlying forms. About the Artist The son of Romanian immigrants, Weissbuch grew up in Brooklyn and already was working at a hat factory by the age of fifteen. Weissbuch studied at the Yale University School of Fine Arts, the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design, and the Art Students League (where he likely encountered the influential abstractionist Hans Hoffman). Beginning in 1934, Weissbuch worked on various WPA programs for seven years (Public Works of Art Project, Temporary Emergency Relief Administration, Federal Art Project), altogether producing 23 recorded prints. His works were widely exhibited in New York (including MoMA, the Brooklyn Museum, and Albright-Knox Museum), along with traveling shows to California, England, and Scandinavia. Weissbuch also became an important mentor within the Graphic Arts Division. For a short time he was appointed its supervisor, and along with his predecessors was “liked and respected by the artists. They showed sympathy and understanding and stood up for the artists under the pressures of the Project administration, which in turn was under political pressure” (Kainen 170). One such pressure by the late 1930s was a call for graphic works supporting European Allies and military preparation, rather than landscapes or social criticism. Late in 1941, Weissbuch began teaching at the newly established <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munson-Williams-Proctor_Arts_Institute" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Utica Art School</a>, created by the Munson – Williams – Proctor Arts Institute. Its egalitarian mission announced that faculty, “when executing their own professional work, will welcome students and the general public who may thus observe their methods in practice” (Art Digest 1 Dec. 1941: 29). Alongside American art generally, Weissbuch’s work during the 1940s moved in a direction of increasing abstraction—for example, <a href="https://munson.emuseum.com/objects/1932/backyard-in-summer?ctx=4715703bae747f0b36f946b02d2517711b4029c3&idx=3" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“Backyard in Summer”</a> (1942) and <a href="https://munson.emuseum.com/objects/10524/rooftops-no-1?ctx=4715703bae747f0b36f946b02d2517711b4029c3&idx=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“Rooftops, No. 1”</a> (1943)—and then fully embraced it by the end of his life in works like <a href="https://munson.emuseum.com/objects/1057/sea-motif?ctx=4715703bae747f0b36f946b02d2517711b4029c3&idx=2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“Sea Motif”</a> (1948). Given Weissbuch’s fascination with motific patterns and textures seen in FAP prints of the 1930s, though, perhaps abstraction makes sense as a latent potential within his earlier work. He was a brief, but meaningful influence upon the Pop artist Robert Indiana, who took classes at the Utica Art School while stationed near there in the amy (Ryan 271). But it seems there had been many other apprentices taught by Weissbuch along the way. 18 works at the <a href="https://www.philamuseum.org/collection?artist=Oscar%20Weissbuch" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Philadelphia Museum of Art</a>. 2 works at the <a href="https://www.nga.gov/artists/34125-oscar-weissbuch" target="_blank" rel="noopener">National Gallery of Art</a>. 2 works at the <a href="https://americanart.si.edu/artist/oscar-weissbuch-5309" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Smithsonian American Art Museum</a>. 4 works at <a href="https://munson.emuseum.com/search/Weissbuch" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Munson Museum</a>. 1 work at the <a href="https://digital.wolfsonian.org/node/67534?search_api_fulltext=weissbuch" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Wolfsonian-FIU</a>. 4 versions of “Gypsy Fortune Teller,” illustrating stages of the woodcut printing process, at <a href="https://dac-collection.wesleyan.edu/artist-maker/info/38000" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Wesleyan University Davison Art Collection</a>. 5 images at <a href="https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/federal-art-project-photographic-division-collection-5467/series-1/box-23-folder-54" target="_blank" rel="noopener">FAP</a>. Works Consulted: Olga M. Viso, “The Golden Age of American Printmaking, 1900-1950”  (1994), courtesy TFAO <a href="https://www.tfaoi.org/aa/9aa/9aa175.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Link</a>; Edward Lewis, “3 Shows Open at Print Club,” Philadelphia Inquirer 27 Mar. 1938: 16; Jacob Kainen, “The Graphic Arts Division of the WPA Federal Arts Project,” in The New Deal Art Projects: An Anthology of Memoirs, ed. Francis V. O’Connor (1972) <a href="https://archive.org/details/newdealartprojec0000unse_m0q7/page/154/mode/1up" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Link</a>; Susan Elizabeth Ryan, Robert Indiana: Figures of Speech (2000); Peter Hastings Falk, ed., Who Was Who in American Art (1999) <a href="https://archive.org/details/whowaswhoinameri0003unse/page/3507/mode/1up" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Link</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Cooper, Ken (description & biography) Helquist, Morgan (photography) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource jpeg, 1.5 MB jpeg, 1.6 MB Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Federal Art Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource ca. 1935 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived New Deal Museum, Mt. Morris Object #FA 1566 Type The nature or genre of the resource Still image Federal Art Project Landscape Art New Deal Museum Oscar Weissbuch woodcut https://openvalley.org/files/original/0ea2533508c5b3b3bf1bb27084149359.jpg d4d9cac3bf7d2d7f5cf739712a9238c4 https://openvalley.org/files/original/a417dbb1ae586d8f74b72ecbd7627fe8.jpg 3bfd1732b5efa3f45171b99ae8b214a8 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource New Deal Gallery Description An account of the resource This collection of more than 200 paintings owes its existence to two primary causes: allocations from the Federal Art Project to a New York state tuberculosis sanatorium located at Mt. Morris--the landscapes and still lifes were thought to be restful--and to the committed volunteers who helped preserve the paintings after the hospital closed. For several decades the canvases were stored in non-climate-controlled basements; it appears that doctors and staff removed at least three dozen works as "keepsakes." Despite the seeming tranquility of the paintings, they were created by artists primarily from New York City whose background was more political and aesthetically adventurous than this rural location would indicate. <a href="https://openvalley.org/exhibits/show/green-new-deal/about" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Follow this hyperlink to a short introduction to the New Deal Gallery collection</a>. We're grateful to the Genesee Valley Council on the Arts for access to their collection, which has been re-photographed and appears here at two resolutions: a cropped, web-friendly file size of around 1 MB; and a high-resolution file including the painting's frame. Items in this collection were created according to a consistent format: a short description of each painting in formal terms, followed by a biography of each artist. Where possible we have supplied hyperlinks relevant to their lives and to other examples of their art. In order to better view them using the Omeka program, click on the "View All" option at the bottom of this page to access various sorting options. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1935-1940 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Cooper, Ken (project director) Ritz, Abigail (photography and project assistant) Additional research: Justin Anderson, Jessica Apthorpe, Jay Bang, Kristopher Bangsil, Julia Caldwell, Sydney Cannioto, Sabrina Chan, Paige Closser, Victoria Domon, Elana Evenden, Yadelin Fernandez, Michael Griffin, Madison Jackson, Niamh McCrohan, Ben Michalak, Ricky Noel, Elizabeth Ramsay, Skye Rose, Samantha Schmeer, John Serbalik, Marianna Sheedy, Emily Spina, Alison Stern, Ravenna VanOstrand, and Nicholas Vanamee. Special thanks to: Deborah Bump, Mark Calicchia, Elizabeth Harris, Melissa Moody, Rebecca Lomuto, and Mai Sato. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as photograph, map, drawing, painting, etc., and any additional data Wood engraving Physical Dimensions The actual physical size of the original image 6 x 4 5/16 in. (image) 11.5 x 9 in. (sheet) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Cropper's Return Description An account of the resource In a small, virtually unfurnished shack three people receive the titular sharecropper—two women and an elderly man, perhaps his father. Raboy’s possible allusion to the Prodigal Son’s return, however, is a sad moment: highlighted at the center of Raboy’s wood engraving is an empty hand above an empty table. Whether this moment captures the conclusion of a day’s work or some longer migration isn’t clear. The two women look out the door into a dark future; surely this would have resonated with many Americans in 1935. Despite no visible lighting source, the print is illuminated with high-key drama encircled by dark shadows. Clothing, wood grain, laundry, wooden siding, and even a beard all ripple with patterned light. It is a style characteristic of the artist’s other FAP works and successfully translated into a later career in comics. There also may be an autobiographical dimension to this print since the artist’s immigrant father, Ayzik (Isaac) Raboy, worked in agriculture for several years and wrote about his North Dakota experiences in Yiddish novels and short stories. “Cropper’s Return” was exhibited at the Whitney Museum of Art and singled out at a National Academy of Art show by the New York Times critic, who placed it “at the head of the list” (27 Mar. 1938: 142). About the Artist: Raboy is one of the better-known Federal Art Project lithographers among collectors, albeit for his subsequent work in comics, where some original drawings sell for hundreds of thousands at auction. He was born in New York City to Sarah and <a href="https://congressforjewishculture.org/people/896/Raboy-Ayzik-Isaac-November-15-1882-January-10-1944" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ayzik (Isaac) Raboy</a>, the latter a well-regarded Yiddish novelist who explored the contradictions of immigrant culture in works like The Jewish Cowboy (Der yidisher kauboy, 1942). Mac Raboy was a precocious artist who studied at the New York School of Industrial Arts and The Pratt Institute Art School; he marked his twentieth birthday submerged in the Great Depression. Between 1935 and 1939, Raboy created more than a dozen prints for the Federal Art Project. His high-contrast wood engravings, dramatically composed subjects, expressive bodies, and social concerns already were cohering into a distinctive style. His works were exhibited at the National Academy of Design, Art Institute of Chicago, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. In 1940 Raboy began working as an illustrator for Fawcett Publications, specifically its comics division. His big break came in 1941 with a spin-off series called Captain Marvel Jr., whose disabled newsboy protagonist can transform into an heroic version of himself—not entirely different in outward appearance. Raboy became known for fine detail and dynamic, <a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/MasterComics34.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">almost gravity-defying composition</a>. With the outbreak of WWII, his series—along with work on other titles like Bulletman and Green Lama—joined the Allied Forces with strong anti-Nazi storylines. One especially interesting work during this period was a true-life story for Look Magazine in 1943. “One of Our Bombers is Missing” recounts an American B-17 bomber crew that is forced to crash-land in the Atlantic, still calling upon Raboy's FAP knack for human drama and <a href="https://openvalley.org/files/original/f4bcbcac3b8a3387391c4026e8ec8d54.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told in sequential panels</a>. In 1948 Raboy achieved what he considered his dream job: illustrating the (color) Sunday newspaper series of <a href="https://openvalley.org/files/original/fedc597e3b9d0028fd0641bb6894b439.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Flash Gordon</a>, which he continued until his death in 1967. <a href="https://americanart.si.edu/artist/mac-raboy-3916" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Four works</a> at Smithsonian American Art Museum. <a href="https://www.artic.edu/artists/44426/mac-raboy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Four works</a> at the Art Institute of Chicago. <a href="https://www.pct.edu/gallery/victory-for-a-dime/mac-raboy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Two works</a> at The Gallery at Penn College. <a href="https://onlinecollections.syr.edu/people/5002/mac-raboy/objects" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Three works</a> at Syracuse University Art Museum. Three more images at <a href="https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/federal-art-project-photographic-division-collection-5467/series-1/box-18-folder-45" target="_blank" rel="noopener">FAP</a>. <a href="https://www.comics.org/creator/8531/covers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">142 comics covers</a> at Grand Comics Database. Mac Raboy Fan Group (<a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/580202255388383/posts/9271122572962931/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">facebook</a>). Works Consulted: Alex Jay, “Mac Raboy” at Stripper’s Guide: Explorations in Newspaper Comics History 14 Dec. 2022 <a href="https://comicstriphistory.com/?s=mac+raboy&cat=all&year=All+Years&monthnum=All+Months&order=desc&posts_per_page=10&post_type=post" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Link</a>; Roy Thomas, Mac Raboy: Master of the Comics (2019) <a href="https://13thdimension.com/a-tribute-to-captain-marvel-jr-s-mac-raboy-by-roy-thomas/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Link</a>; Peter Hastings Falk, ed., Who Was Who in American Art (1999) <a href="https://archive.org/details/whowaswhoinameri0003unse/page/2689/mode/1up" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Link</a> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Raboy, Emanuel (Mac), 1914-1967 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Federal Art Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1935 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Cooper, Ken (description & biography)  Helquist, Morgan (photography) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived New Deal Museum Object #FA1437 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource jpeg, 1.4 MB jpeb, 566 KB Type The nature or genre of the resource Still image Agriculture Federal Art Project Mac Raboy New Deal Museum woodcut https://openvalley.org/files/original/fc337f8a1c4ea9fbed410614c5575964.JPG ce423fd6c0a63ec18444eeda75c5d403 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource New Deal Gallery Description An account of the resource This collection of more than 200 paintings owes its existence to two primary causes: allocations from the Federal Art Project to a New York state tuberculosis sanatorium located at Mt. Morris--the landscapes and still lifes were thought to be restful--and to the committed volunteers who helped preserve the paintings after the hospital closed. For several decades the canvases were stored in non-climate-controlled basements; it appears that doctors and staff removed at least three dozen works as "keepsakes." Despite the seeming tranquility of the paintings, they were created by artists primarily from New York City whose background was more political and aesthetically adventurous than this rural location would indicate. <a href="https://openvalley.org/exhibits/show/green-new-deal/about" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Follow this hyperlink to a short introduction to the New Deal Gallery collection</a>. We're grateful to the Genesee Valley Council on the Arts for access to their collection, which has been re-photographed and appears here at two resolutions: a cropped, web-friendly file size of around 1 MB; and a high-resolution file including the painting's frame. Items in this collection were created according to a consistent format: a short description of each painting in formal terms, followed by a biography of each artist. Where possible we have supplied hyperlinks relevant to their lives and to other examples of their art. In order to better view them using the Omeka program, click on the "View All" option at the bottom of this page to access various sorting options. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1935-1940 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Cooper, Ken (project director) Ritz, Abigail (photography and project assistant) Additional research: Justin Anderson, Jessica Apthorpe, Jay Bang, Kristopher Bangsil, Julia Caldwell, Sydney Cannioto, Sabrina Chan, Paige Closser, Victoria Domon, Elana Evenden, Yadelin Fernandez, Michael Griffin, Madison Jackson, Niamh McCrohan, Ben Michalak, Ricky Noel, Elizabeth Ramsay, Skye Rose, Samantha Schmeer, John Serbalik, Marianna Sheedy, Emily Spina, Alison Stern, Ravenna VanOstrand, and Nicholas Vanamee. Special thanks to: Deborah Bump, Mark Calicchia, Elizabeth Harris, Melissa Moody, Rebecca Lomuto, and Mai Sato. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as photograph, map, drawing, painting, etc., and any additional data Woodcut print Physical Dimensions The actual physical size of the original image 10.5 x 8.5 in. Condition: surface dirt Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Old Brickyard, Chelsea Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource jpeg, 973 KB Description An account of the resource Sometimes called Low Point, Chelsea, NY is located north of the present-day Newburgh-Beacon Bridge. Dean’s etching shows the ruins of what had once been a thriving Hudson River industry, using mud from seasonal deposits. We see grass in the foreground, possibly of some marshy variety, and a profusion of foliage in various textures reclaiming the brickworks buildings. At far right, a human figure serves to render the scale. About the Artist: Born Robert Jerome Dean in Chattanooga, TN, this NDG artist was primarily a cartoonist. Having attempted to join the circus as a contortionist, Dean moved with his family to Buffalo and eventually studied at the Student Art League. His first job was drawing turf cartoons for Horse World—Buffalo, then editorial cartoons for the Buffalo Times. In 1905 Dean joined the Atlanta News (a city where he lived for several years). Dean was a prolific, sometimes imaginative illustrator at Joel Chandler Harris’s <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101079674709;view=2up;seq=4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Uncle Remus’s Magazine</a>; while working there he created a hybrid fantasy story-comic strip called The Zotwots that was published between 1908 and 1914. When Harris’s magazine folded the strip ran for a short period in the New York Herald. Like many other cartoons of this period, racial humor and minstrelsy sometimes informed Dean’s series. He then moved to New York City to find work where he could as a writer and illustrator: Collier’s magazine, the New York Journal, Herald, and Telegraph Some of his drawings found their way onto lithographs, wooden jigsaw puzzles, and ceramic plates. He spent his last twenty years living in Dutchess County. 2 more images at <a href="https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/federal-art-project-photographic-division-collection-5467/series-1/box-6-folder-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">FAP</a>. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dean, Bob, 1875-1949 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Federal Art Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1935-1940 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Ritz, Abigail (photography) Cooper, Ken (biography) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived New Deal Gallery, Genesee Valley Council on the Arts Object #FA18141 Type The nature or genre of the resource Still image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 051 Federal Art Project New Deal Gallery Robert "Bob" Dean woodcut