A New Deal

PBS’ Art Beat section, a segment on its Web site devoted to reporting the goings-on in the art world, recently featured a piece (“A New Deal for Artists”) about governmental aids instituted to preserve and encourage art during the Great Depression. Lately, there has been an inundation of articles drawing parallels between the Great Depression and our current economic situation and, thankfully, “A New Deal for Artists” does not exude a tone quite as disastrous; instead, the article celebrates the various governmental programs that encourage art. Because of various governmental programs, like the National Endowment for the Arts, contemporary artists have a better chance at perpetuating their art than did their counterparts before Roosevelt’s New Deal. Despite the briefness of the program, the Works Progress Administration helped set in motion the idea that the government could and should help artists. Fifty-six of the 15,000 commissioned works are now on display at the Smithsonian Institution. The Georgia Museum of Art has a number of paintings (and some prints) by artists who benefited from similar revitalizing efforts set in motion by the government during the Great Depression, like James E. Routh Jr., Andrée Ruellan, Ben Shahn and Stuart Davis.