Description

The Project :
 
TAM, long an advocate and presenter of Northwest art, will open an exhibition in spring of 2020 addressing the art and artists associated with the WPA/FAP programs in the four-state Region 16.  The proposed grant would support the exhibition catalogue, New Deal Art in the Northwest: The WPA and Beyond , the first comprehensive resource on the subject.  WPA art of the Northwest is a comparatively understudied subject in the context of WPA and New Deal art histories. The publication will be informed by more than 18 years of research on the subject by the project lead, Margaret Bullock.  Her work has entailed a heroic process of recuperation of the identities, careers, and production of scores of artists who were associated with the program.  The publication will continue TAM’s long record of publications on Northwest Art, and more particularly the museum’s Northwest Perspective Series, begun in 1992.
 
Rationale for Funding :
 
In recent years, the AAP has occasionally invited institutions who were declined in the context of the annual exhibition competition to apply for special grants to support the catalogue portion of the exhibition project. This has occurred when the exhibitions are not promising, owing to issues including the unavailability of loans or the quality of works of art.  In these cases, the AAP has determined that, apart from the exhibition, the associated publication has substantial independent merit.  One recent example is the publication, Augusta Savage: Renaissance Woman , which will now serve as the most substantial publication on the artist. 
 
In the case of the Tacoma project, the exhibition was declined in 2017, when the checklist was under-developed and was also projecting the inclusion of works that were more historically interesting than aesthetically significant.  The publication will nevertheless make a significant contribution to the American Art field: to the still under-explored period of the 1930s; and more specifically to a rising trend of new WPA scholarship.
 
The publication will dramatically extend the reach of the exhibition, which will be seen only in the Northwest.  As important, the contents will be shared with the two primary online research resources for WPA-related projects: New Deal Network; and Living New Deal.