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Rare Depression-Era WPA Prints on Display at DePaul Art Museum

By Paul Biasco | September 12, 2014 5:35am
 The 1941 lithography “Sanding the Propeller” by Edward Arthur Wilson will be among those on display Sept. 11-Dec. 21 at the DePaul Art Museum's exhibition “Ink, Paper, Politics: WPA-era Printmaking from the Needles Collection."
The 1941 lithography “Sanding the Propeller” by Edward Arthur Wilson will be among those on display Sept. 11-Dec. 21 at the DePaul Art Museum's exhibition “Ink, Paper, Politics: WPA-era Printmaking from the Needles Collection."
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Image courtesy of DPAM/Collection of Belverd Needles Jr. and Marian Powers Needles

LINCOLN PARK — The latest exhibit at the DePaul Art Museum provides a glimpse into the Great Depression through the minds of 56 different artists.

The works on display are rare prints created by artists who were being supported by the federal government's Works Progress Administration during the 1930s.

The prints focus on the nation's economic inequality and the issues and hardships of ordinary people during the turbulent time.

Franklin D. Roosevelt enacted the WPA to put citizens back to work in the mid 1930s and included artists on the plan.

"He's not just saying we will take care of the steel workers who are out of a job, he’s saying artists are an important part of culture and society," said Louise Lincoln, director of the DePaul Art Museum. "He was saying artists are important for our sense of identity. We need to take care of them and fund them and encourage them to produce.”

The artists were able to capture a moment of time for the country rather than join the bread line.

The prints on display at the DePaul Art Museum, 935 W. Fullerton Ave., are by well-known artists such as Stuart Davis and Rockwell Kent.

“I think theres also a real sense in which it makes you think about the political consequences of this type of program," Lincoln said. "How did Roosevelt make it work? Why couldn’t it happen now and to what degree do we all still have the idea that artists can still be important."

The prints were given to the museum by Belverd Needles Jr., a professor of accountancy at DePaul, and his wife Marian Powers Needles, an adjunct professor of executive education at Northwestern University.

The exhibition — "Ink, Paper, Politics: WPA-era Printmaking from the Needles Collection" — opened Thursday and will run through Dec. 21.

 

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