Marlene Park and Gerald E. Markowitz research materials on New Deal Art, 1931-1999

Collection Information

Size: 5.8 Linear feet

Summary: The Marlene Park and Gerald E. Markowitz research files on New Deal art are dated 1931-1999 and measure 5.8 linear feet. The research files document New Deal art projects and artists through some original correspondence with artists, printed material, interview transcripts, and several sound recordings of interviews with artists of the period. Subject files relate to WPA era art and art projects; many contain numerous photocopies of records from the Personnel Records Center and the U. S. Treasury Relief Arts Projects now in the custody of the National Archives and Records Administration.
The collection consists primarily of artists' files documenting the WPA, The National Personnel Records Center, the Public Art Preservation Committee, and the U.S. Treasury Relief Art Project. Also found are lists of artists arranged by category, correspondence, transcripts of interviews, printed material, exhibition catalogs, monographs, photographs, slides, and sound recordings. Among the artists are: Charles Alston, Will Barnet, Ilya Bolotowsky, Louis Bouche, James Brooks, Charles Burchfield, Paul Cadmus, Minna Citron, Robert Cronbach, Hugo Gellert, Adloph Gottlieb, Leo Katz, Roy King, Albert Kotin, Edward Lanning, Ethel Magafan, William Palmer, Anton Refregier, Philip Reisman, Lincoln Rothschild, Joseph Solman, Harry Sternberg, Stuyvesant Van Veen, and Marion Walton.

Biographical/Historical Note

Art historians Marlene Park and husband Gerald E. Markowitz conducted research on New Deal art projects. Their work resulted in an exhibition "New Deal for Art: The Government Projects of the 1930's with Examples from New York City and State" (1977) and a catalog with the same title. 7), and a book, Democratic Vistas: Post Offices and Public Art in the New Deal (1984). Both were on the faculty of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Marlene Park served on the Public Art Preservation Committee from 1979-1982.

Provenance

The Marlene Park and Gerald E. Markowitz research materials on New Deal Art were donated to the Archives in 1999 by art historians Marlene Park and Gerald E. Markowitz.