‘Great Art From Tough Times’ at Racine Art Museum

Industrial subjectsfrom the 1930s, including gas companies, locomotives and lumberyards,illustrate the sense of community between the common man and the uncommonartist during a difficult era in American history. Approximately 40 works onpaper displayed at the Racine Art Museum(RAM) document local efforts stemmingfrom the federal government’s Works Progress Administration (WPA) visual artsprogram, 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 descendedinto unemployment and homelessness. These timely observations provideperspective and hope during our nation’s current economic struggles.

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

Lewandowski’s steelcatwalks, chimneys and pipes amid gray watercolor washes portray the essence ofthis new industrial era. His painting GasCompany (1937) foreshadows the ensuing years of war and heavy energyconsumption.

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

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

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

Selected from more than260 paintings in the RAM’s permanent collection, “Great Art From Tough Times”demonstrates the imaginative energy derived from an era of devastation anddespair. From 1933 to 1943, WPA projects sparked more than 225,000 paintings,photographs, prints and sculpturesworks that later graced libraries, schools,post offices and other public buildings.

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