AMERICAN BLOCK PRINT CALENDAR 1937
[Works Progress Administration’s Federal Arts Project]
[Works Progress Administration’s Federal Arts Project]: AMERICAN BLOCK PRINT CALENDAR 1937. Milwaukee: Gutenberg Publishing Company, 1936. Original edition. Printed self wrapper and plain chipboard lower panel with attached die-cut perforated display stand as issued. Publishers black plastic comb binding. 53 leaves (28 x 19 cm.). Front wrapper lightly chipped to edges. Textblock edges lightly thumbed. The rear panel perforated stand has not been deployed. A rare document in very good or better condition.
Spiral bound desk calendar that features a print for every week of the year by 53 American artists. Illustrated with 33 woodcuts, 8 line photomechanical prints, 8 lithographs, 5 linecuts, and 1 linecut with linocut, measuring 18.8 x 12.8 cm. or smaller. 18 prints signed in plate. Each print titled with format identified.
Contributing artists in order that their work appears are: Wanda Gag, George Barford, Marguerite Zorach, Biagio Pinto, Gregory Orloff, Wharton Esherick, Mary Louise Lawser, Todros Geller, Peggy Bacon, William Zorach, Stuart Davis, Willi Anders, Thomas Hart Benton, William Gropper, Carl Holty, Herbert Pullinger, Walter Dubois Richards, Grant Wood, Robert Von Neumann, Gustave Baumann, Howard N. Cook, Bernece Berkman, Edwin Tunis, Florence V. Cannon, John Steuart Curry, Alfred Bendiner, Alexander Masley, Evelynne Mess, Julian Wehr, Howard Thomas, Angelo Raphael Pinto, Emil Ganso, Gerhard Bakker, Clare Eichbaum Brehme, John F. Stenvall, Grace Arnold-Albee, Ernest Fiene, Jean Charlot, Birger Sandzen, Lowell M. Lee, Karl Knaths, Boris Artzybasheff, Julius J. Lankes, Thomas W. Nason, Rockwell Kent, Kevin B. O'Callahan, Fritzi Brod, Mabel Dwight, Nicolai Cikovsky, Helmut Summ, Fiske Boyd, Elmer Young, and Frank Hartley Anderson.
The wrapper states “This calendar is created to bring contemporary American art to the American home. The contributions range from conservative to abstract art to present the variety of contemporary American art; to enlarge the scope of the contributing artists, a small number of pictures in other media than block prints have been included."
The 53 leaves of this calendar can be viewed here.
During the Depression era, New Deal art projects of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Administration (1933 – 1943) employed artists to create murals, paintings and sculpture for public buildings including federal buildings, post offices, and courthouses. New Deal artists were also hired to create thousands of portable works of art that were loaned or allocated to museums and other public agencies.
Artwork created under the New Deal is often thought of as WPA art. There were four New Deal art projects. Three were administered by the Department of the Treasury: Public Works of Art Project (PWAP); Section of Fine Arts (SECTION), previously called the Section of Painting and Sculpture; and the Treasury Relief Art Project (TRAP). The fourth was the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Arts Project (WPA/FAP). The WPA was the largest of the four and was active from August 1935 to July 1943.
Two-thirds (35) of the 53 artists included in this calendar were associated with the PWAP, WPA/FAP programs of the New Deal: Frank Hartley Anderson, Gerhard Bakker, Gustave Baumann, Thomas Hart Benton, Bernice Berkman, Clare Eichbaum Brehme, Fiske Boyd, Fritzi Brod, Jean Charlot, Nicolai Cikovsky, Howard N. Cook, John Steuart Curry, Stuart Davis, Mabel Dwight, Ernest Fiene, Emil Ganso, Todros Geller, William Gropper, Carl Holty, Karl Knaths, Lowell M. Lee, Alexander Masley, Robert Franz Albert von Neumann, Kevin B. O'Callahan, Gregory Orloff, Angelo Raphael Pinto, Biagio Pinto, Walter Dubois Richards, Birger Sandzen, John F. Stenvall, Helmut Summ, Howard Thomas, Grant Wood, Marguerite Zorach and William Zorach.