‘Great Art From Tough Times’ at Racine Art Museum

Industrial subjects from the 1930s, including gas companies, locomotives and lumberyards, illustrate the sense of community between the common man and the uncommon artist during a difficult era in American history. Approximately 40 works on paper displayed at the Racine Art Museum(RAM) document local efforts stemming from the federal government’s Works Progress Administration (WPA) visual arts program, which began in 1933 in the midst of the Great Depression.

The RAM exhibit, titled “Great Art From Tough Times: Wisconsin WPA Artworks in RAM’s Collection” (through April 18), showcases images created as millions of Americans descended into unemployment and homelessness. These timely observations provide perspective and hope during our nation’s current economic struggles.

Nationally, the WPA program fostered the legendary careers of artists such as Dorothea Lange, Willem de Kooning, Louise Nevelson, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko; similarly, the program helped Wisconsin to produce big-name regional artists like Edmund Lewandowski, Schomer Lichtner, Charles Winstanley Thwaites and Ann Krasnan, among others.

Lewandowski’s steel catwalks, chimneys and pipes amid gray watercolor washes portray the essence of this new industrial era. His painting Gas Company (1937) foreshadows the ensuing years of war and heavy energy consumption.

Thwaites showcases his expert impressionistic technique in Café (Blatz Beer Garden, State Fair Park, 1937), whichdepicts the public enjoying Milwaukee’s blue-ribbon brew.

Stark, bold ink strokes define Lichtner’s intimate Driving the Wagon (1938). In this picture of pure emotion, the viewer stares over the sturdy shoulders of a workingman holding the reins to a horse wagon.

Krasnan’s Trying on a Hat (1939)envisions three women through luminous aqua, cocoa brown and cloudy white colors. The trio browses for the perfect accessory, in what could be an homage to The Millinery Shop by Edgar Degas.

Selected from more than 260 paintings in the RAM’s permanent collection, “Great Art From Tough Times” demonstrates the imaginative energy derived from an era of devastation and despair. From 1933 to 1943, WPA projects sparked more than 225,000 paintings, photographs, prints and sculptures—works that later graced libraries, schools, post offices and other public buildings.

The Wisconsin artists featured in this exhibit used these projects as a way to contribute to society and later propel themselves into teaching jobs at colleges and universities. These individuals represent a tradition that still holds the power to inspire artists and everyday folks during tough times.