Delaware Art Museum presents Citizen Artist

Both a historic survey and a “love letter to artists”, this insightful offering was curated by Margaret Winslow (head curator and curator of contemporary art) and curatorial fellow Dorothy Fisher, with the stated purpose of creating and re-creating a “living artistic record”.

Citizen Artist focuses on two government incentives that allowed artists to pursue their practices by providing them with economic support (AKA jobs). The exhibition covers both the well-known 1930s and 1940s New Deal/WPA initiatives and the much less prominent 1970s Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (known as CETA), America’s largest investment in workers since FDR’s New Deal.

The exhibition is dominated by an L-shaped wall that clearly delineates each program. Blue-marked sections focus on works from the New Deal (1933-43) while CETA-produced works (1973-1982) are highlighted in red, and an entire wall lists the names of artists and writers from both programs that are featured here.

Art of the New Deal

First comes The New Deal, opening with a striking wall of 15 framed posters, beautifully made WPA silkscreen prints that include an advertisement for Pennsylvania State Forests, a call to “Protect Our Birds” from the Pennsylvania Game Commission, and Chew House, Germantown, Philadelphia (1938) by the city’s Katherine Milhous (1894-1977). These and hundreds more, all made with uncompromisingly high artistic standards, were created for organizations nationwide.

A nearby dark blue wall features some of the era’s paintings, including a delightful large work by Walter Willoughby (1886-1973), a University of Delaware graduate and World War I bomber pilot who studied at PAFA. Titled Bookland (1934) and made for the Public Works of Art project, it shows books coming alive as their locales or characters spill from the pages. And no First State WPA exhibition would be complete without the work of Delawarean Edward Loper Sr. (1916-2011); seen here are his Taking Down Clothes (1939) and After a Shower (1937).

Nuanced graphite drawings by David E. Reyam (1864-1943) include regional locales and a delicate rendering of old door hinges. And two large, impressive oils focus on Pittsburgh: Springtime in Pittsburgh (1939) by Cleveland artist Clarence Holbrook Carter (1904-2000) and Steel Nocturne (Pittsburgh) (1937) by Stuyvesant Van Veen (1910-1938). Van Veen was one of 37 WPA muralists commissioned for Philadelphia’s landmarked former Family Court Building at 18th and Vine Streets.

Memorable photography is one of the most widely known aspects of the New Deal, and these artists created moving portraits of American life, especially in rural areas. Some famous images are here, including Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother, Nipomo CA (1936); Berenice Abbott’s majestic Murray Hill Hotel: Spirals (1935); and Walker Evans’ A Graveyard and Steel Mill in Bethlehem PA (1935). There are also three photos by Ben Shahn (1898-1969), who became more famous for his prints and murals, these early works presaging his later socialist and political art.

Citizen Artist surprise

The New Deal portion of the exhibition is filled with artists who didn’t become household names, but whose (unexpectedly colorful) works shaped the vision of a generation of Americans. But the surprise of Citizen Artist is the exhibition’s second portion, highlighting works that arose from the CETA program. This Nixon-era initiative was strictly meant for job creation, but soon after the legislation was enacted, ingenious artists nationwide realized that they too qualified for this federal work support program.

A number of major American artists founded their practices with CETA projects—Cindy Sherman and Flash Rosenberg are cited in Citizen Artist, and Rosenberg’s video Unidentified Working Women (1976) screens at the exhibition’s entrance. Delaware also had a robust contingent that included photographers Carson Zullinger (b.1951), Norma Diskau Calabro (b.1942), and Tony Calabro (1932-2002).

One of the more unique works on view in the CETA section is a fascinating series of framed request forms and their resulting artist projects, documented and collected by Julia Weist (b. 1984) during her 2019 residency in New York City’s Cultural Affairs and Records & Information Departments. Other striking work is Peggy Brady’s series of silver-gelatin photographic 3D dioramas titled Portrait of Buffalo, a city that successfully activated CETA funding for a number of experimental art projects.

Lengthy development, elegant installation

Citizen Artist has had a lengthy developmental process. Winslow noted that finding CETA-funded artists was a decade-long challenge, since the program wasn’t annotated and archived with the same rigor as WPA projects. She noted that two living archives (the CETA Arts Legacy Project and Living New Deal) continue as resources about artists from both these eras.

For Citizen Artist, Jenny Chan (Jack Design Studio) created a visually clear, elegant installation design that moves the viewer smoothly between these two very different art initiatives. Especially arresting is a wall-sized list of 22 arts or arts-adjacent professions that qualified for and received CETA funding, beginning with “actor” and including graphic artist, offset printer, and composer/musician.

Citizen Artist also enfolds a smaller exhibition titled Citizen Photographer, consisting of 24 images by 24 Delaware photographers. And in an upstairs galley, unconnected with these two, is an intimate view of The City on Paper, 47 evocative urban drawings and prints. While that exhibition runs through August 16, Citizen Artist closes on July 19. Don’t miss it; it’s well worth a visit.