Works Progress Administration. Federal Art Project. Illinois Art Project Collection

The Illinois Art Project was one of the largest state “sub-projects” under the Federal Art Project (FAP), which was in turn an arm of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The Illinois Art Project operated between 1935 and 1943 and employed 775 artists and administrators, of whom 62 are included in this collection. The general offices were located at 135 S. LaSalle Street. The Federal Art Gallery was located at 211 N. Michigan Avenue. In addition to direct employment of artists, the Illinois Art Project sponsored educational outreach via the Chicago Park District and Board of Education, which ran 26 art centers throughout the city, including the South Side Art Center located at 3831 South Michigan Avenue (Photographs 165 and 166).

The artists employed by the Project tended to work in one but sometimes two or more of the “units” or genre classifications. The Easel unit is defined any two-dimensional artwork produced on an easel. These works accounted for about a one third of the workforce. In fact, many of the pieces produced by the Mural unit were not technically murals at all—that is, frescoes painted into a wall’s surface plaster—but rather large-scale Easel works that were later mounted on walls. Other units were called Sculpture, Diorama, Graphics (including architectural and decorating design), Design (including furniture and décor), Poster and Photography. It is assumed that all the photos in this collection were produced by the Photography unit of the Illinois Art Project.

About one-fourth of the easel artists chose to work in their own studios. The others utilized the Project studios that consisted of large and spacious areas in which many artists worked in the company of others (Photographs 158-159).

The Federal Art Gallery (also known as the Illinois Art Project Gallery) was located at 211 N. Michigan Avenue and the first exhibition at this site opened in June, 1939. The second gallery was one of the activities developed by the South Side Community Art Center, itself another Federal Art Project program. This center, which opened in 1940, served the South Side community of Black artists who had formerly been loosely organized as the Arts and Crafts Guild.

A detailed history of the Illinois Art Project is available in George J. Mavigliano and Richard A. Lawson, The Federal Art Project in Illinois 1935-1943 (Carbondale, Southern Illinois University Press, 1990), call number: N8838 .M38 1990.