As we reconnected to daily life in 2022, we continued to scour for any WPA posters that might be in private or public collections to add to our comprehensive online archive. This year, we found nine posters to add to the public record - bringing our current total up to 2266!

Many of them were gems about books and libraries, - and mostly from the Illinois WPA Art Project in Chicago - these new finds brought to light another new piece by Arlington Gregg that neither we nor his grandson Ed Walker had seen before!

In addition to those uncatalogued pieces, we also came across some exciting images from well-known artists.

Two new items by Dorothy Waugh added to the state and national park posters we have already documented.

We also found record of a poster for National Art Week signed by Boris Artzybasheff, a well-known surrealist best known for his magazine art. We have never seen record of Artzybasheff being a WPA artist in the NY Division, so we are not sure if he was every on the rolls of the WPA or if he was commissioned to do this piece as an already noted artist of the time.

Along with these new finds, was a rare image from the Connecticut WPA Poster Division that we've never seen before and isn't documented in any other public archival records.

We are excited to continue our search in 2023! And don't forget, if you see any posters out there marked "WPA" or "FEDERAL ART PROJECT" please help us document them for the archive. You can send a picture and tell us what you know by submitting to the archive here.

The transition to the job market from the domestic realm is carried along explicitly though building on household skills, which are then augmented with free training opportunities. ​

Another branch of the war effort was focused on combating espionage, and in these posters, a more even handed approach is evident. Women and men are both encouraged not to share information with each other. ​

In the meantime, let us end on a high note with an honorable mention to art and creativity. Many posters celebrate women as artists - and also as muses. I’m reminded of a previous year’s post from Ennis Carter about Celebrating Katherine Milhous, a prolific WPA artist and also the head of the Philadelphia FAP division. ​

Places for the People: WPA Travel Posters at Carpenters' Hall celebrates rare local posters created by the WPA Poster Division to promote tourism in and around Philadelphia. The curated exhibit of original posters from the Free Library's Print & Picture Collection brings to light many that have not been on public display for more than 80 years.

WPA Poster exhibit/talk with Ennis Carter, curator & author of Posters for the People and hands-on "print your own" screenprinting workshop of a newly discovered rare poster of Carpenters' Hall. 

To celebrate its connection to travel and tourism, Carpenters’ Hall will host a temporary exhibit of travel posters featuring iconic Philadelphia and Pennsylvania landmarks, including Carpenters’ Hall, Independence Hall, the Betsy Ross House and others. The posters, on loan from the Free Library of Philadelphia and from Carter's collection, were commissioned in the 1930s by the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration and were created by leading graphic illustrators.

The “Places for the People” exhibit will run November 6 to December 20, 2020, at Carpenters’ Hall, 320 Chestnut Street in Philadelphia. Admission to Carpenters’ Hall is free, and the exhibit can be viewed during the Hall’s regular public hours, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. The Hall is closed to the public on Monday.

“Places for the People” was originally meant to run concurrently with the U.S. Travel Association’s National Travel & Tourism Week (May 3-9). The association’s theme for the week in 2020 is “#TravelWorks,” which emphasizes the significant economic impact and job creation generated by travel and tourism. “Places for the People” supports this theme beautifully since the WPA posters were created to stimulate these same benefits during the Great Depression.

For more information about “Places for the People” and Carpenters’ Hall, contact Michael Norris, Executive Director, at (215) 925-0167 or michaelnorris@carpentershall.org.

We are excited to announce that we have added 11 new posters by artist Arlington Gregg to the Posters for the People archive. 7 of these gems are "New to the Public Record" - which means they were never catalogued at the national level!

Thanks to the diligent work of Gregg's grandson Ed Walker, we learned about this collection of posters - and about other stunning art by Arlington Gregg in the process. Ed created a Facebook Page here to celebrate and showcase his grandfather's beautiful work. It's also exciting to put a face to the name connected with such fun and joyous posters as those made by Gregg.

MORE EXCITING NEWS! This poster is now attributed to Arlington Gregg because the monogram matches other work that Ed found.

FUN FACT: This Arlington Gregg poster was the centerpiece of promotional materials for the Posters for the People book.

The first west coast exhibit of Posters for the People: Art of the WPA opened in Los Angeles at MutMuz Gallery on Fri, January 31, 2020 and ran through Sun, February 9, 2020.
 
The exhibit, curated by Ennis Carter and produced by John Caulkins featured 20 original WPA posters, signs, photos and films made during the 1930s & 40s – most of which are from the Henry Vizcarra collection.
 
Opening night at the gallery on Chung Kind Road in LA featured a talk with the collectors and the "New Deal Film Festival" - a collection of propaganda and documentary footage from the era that provided context for the WPA programs for which the posters were created. 

Hands-on screenprinting workshops on the weekends gave visitors of all ages the chance to get a personal experience with the medium of most of the posters in the show - and some posters of their own to take home!

A very special thank you goes out to John Caulkins, who envisioned and supported the first exhibit for Posters for the People on the west coast. Thank you also to Mark and Anita Mothersbaugh for giving the exhibit a home in their MutMuz Gallery - and Jennifer Shipman the director of the Mothersbaugh art studio and the gallery for all of the support before, during and after!

And thank you to all the hard work of the exhibit & workshops team! John Caulkins, Henry & Freda Vizcarra, Vanessa Rud, Nadia Estrada, Sebastian Estrada & Emily Riley, Rafael Ramirez, Clementine Bordeaux and Kathleen Krushas.

Read more in the press release here and check out photos and links below.

by Ennis Carter, curator & author of Posters for the People

As Black History Month comes to a close, I'd like to share some of my favorite examples of African American representation in WPA Posters. Lately, I've seen several comments about the WPA - and the posters in particular - that contribute to a narrative about the imagery systematically erased people of color. It's a narrative that concerns me because I have the exact opposite perspective.

I have always thought that WPA posters offered a glimpse into American life that counteracted a systematic absence or misrepresentation of people of color in mainstream advertising - a dominant narrative form in our market-focused country. In many cases, too, the artists depicted symbolic human forms rather than narrow images of what it meant to be an American or a worker. The WPA was by no means fully integrated, but I firmly believe that some of the poster artists were trying to balance inequity through their own creative work. 

​Below are some of my favorite examples of posters that highlight, honor, and celebrate African American people and culture. Many of them (and hundreds more) were designed and produced by people of color who worked in the WPA. (African Americans made up about 15% of the WPA workforce at that time). 

And, as always, if you see WPA posters out there in the world, please share with us! We have documented only 2,000 of the 35,000 thought to have been produced. With those odds, I'm sure there are many more beautiful examples that contributed to a diverse and inclusive view of America - then and now.

Our position on racist or demeaning content in posters
Not all of the WPA posters were respectful in depicting people of color and are not above reproach for having racist or demeaning content. In the interest of documenting all of the WPA posters known to exist, we include everything in the digital archive only. This is real history that needs to be part of the overall view of the output of this program - as sanctioned by the United States government. It is not a part of the program that we celebrate, however. Reproductions are not available of posters that depict racist or demeaning content and we do not include any of these images in our book or exhibits.

​LOS ANGELES/PHILADELPHIA – The first west coast exhibit of Posters for the People: Art of the WPA will open in Los Angeles at MutMuz Gallery on Fri, January 31, 2020 and run through Sun, February 9, 2020.
 
The exhibit, curated by Ennis Carter and produced by John Caulkins will feature original WPA posters made during the 1930s & 40s – most of which are from the Henry Vizcarra collection.
 
“We are very excited to showcase WPA posters in Los Angeles,” said Carter, the leading expert on WPA posters and founder/author of Posters for the People: Art of the WPA. “It’s a good moment to celebrate a time in our nation’s history when art & design inspired a public consciousness about positive social change. The large local collection of Henry’s combined with other gems from our traveling exhibit will create a show like no other we’ve done before.”
 
WHEN: The exhibit opens on Friday, January 31, 2020 at 5pm
The exhibit will be open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from 1/31/20 – 2/9/20 and by appointment.
Poster reproductions & the book Posters for the People: Art of the WPA will be available for purchase.
 
WHERE: MutMuz Gallery, 971 Chung King Road, Los Angeles, CA 90012 (Chinatown)
 
Other Programming:

• “Print-Your-Own” WPA Poster – Silkscreen Workshops
  Saturdays 2/1 & 2/8 at 12 noon – 4pm • Free, Family Friendly, No experience required.
  
  
• The New Deal Film Festival
  WPA film footage & New Deal propaganda will be shown throughout exhibit.

 
After the Great Depression in America (1929 - 1933), newly elected President Franklin Roosevelt initiated his “New Deal” program that put 8.5 million people back to work over an eight-year period (1935 – 1943). Nationwide, 10,000 out-of-work artists and craftspeople were included, with a group of 500 hired to create posters to promote public programs, shared values and everyday American culture. More than 35,000 posters were designed (and 2 million printed) as part of the government- sponsored Works Progress Administration (WPA). There was never a record kept of all of the posters designed. Today, very few originals still exist - scattered across the country or lost.  
 
“The programs of the WPA exposed many Americans to the arts for the first time,” said collector Henry Vizcarra. “The WPA left us a important legacy of art and design right here in California – from the Hollywood Bowl fountain to the murals of the San Pedro post office.”


Posters for the People searches private and public collections to create the most comprehensive record of posters known to exist. Through research they have documented more than 2,000 posters (more than doubling the official number held at the Library of Congress). A growing online archive presents those with visual records; provides a way for people to submit their own findings; and sells books and reproductions to keep the art alive and fund its work. Its curated traveling exhibit of original posters brings to light many that have not been on public display for more than 80 years. For more information visit: http://www.postersforthepeople.com/
 
“I first learned about Ennis’s work through Atlas Obscura,” said John Caulkins. “I found that we share a fascination with historic public art/propaganda and the lesser known poster artists who in fact have shaped our national identity. The New Deal era of the 1930’s deserves our attention in this time of crisis in our government. We wanted to offer the LA public a chance to see the origins of this powerful graphic tradition that has had such a lasting impact on artists in California and elsewhere”
 
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ABOUT
 
MutMuz Gallery is an experimental pop-up contemporary art space that presents accessible and engaging exhibitions and programs. 
Located at 971 Chung King Road, Los Angeles, CA, 90012. 
For more information visit MutMuz Gallery on Instagram: @mutmuzgallery_  
Contact: Jennifer@Mutato.com  
 
Ennis Carter is the director of DfSI/Social Impact Studios, founder of the Posters for the People project and author of Posters for the People: Art of the WPA. For more information visit: http://socialimpactstudios.com/
 
John Caulkins is an arts producer and early backer of Atlas Obscura.
Contact: jcaulkins@me.com
 
Henry Vizcarra founded 30sixty advertising+design, an entertainment based firm with clients from all the major movie studios. He headed the firm for 35 years. In the past,  Mr.  Vizcarra taught logo design at UCLA Extension. He also published the book “Posters of the WPA 1935-1943” and re-issued a silkscreened collection of  WPA posters.
Mr. Vizcarra has recently retired, but always promotes WPA art whenever he can.
 
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Images available upon request
 
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We here at Posters for the People are enthusiastic about even the smallest discoveries of new posters, and we are truly excited to present to you three new posters to the archive from the Kelvin Smith Library at Case Western University in Cleveland, Ohio!  These posters all advertise publically funded housing for low-income workers and are beautiful examples of W.P.A. artifacts. Thank you to the Scholarly Resources and Special Collections Department at Case Western University for sharing their posters with us! (Click the poster above to explore!)

In honor of Black History Month, we present this gem that we've never seen before! And the controversial story about the production here.   #‎NewToThePublicRecord‬ ‪#‎BlackHistoryMonth‬