Until June 20th, the New York City gallery Zwirner & Wirth has an art show collecting a series of nudes painted by Alice Neel during the Great Depression. One GalleyCat editor put together this short video about Neel, the Work Projects Administration (WPA), and New York writers in the 1930s–using actual WPA footage shot during the period.
IMPORTANT NOTE: All three images in the video are copyright The Estate of Alice Neel and come courtesy of David Zwirner, New York–they feature brief images of nudity. Neel befriended numerous writers in the 1930s, including poet Kenneth Fearing and editor Malcolm Cowley, and the WPA created work for this group of artists. While Neel’s official site provides an extensive biography, the book “Alice Neel: Paintings from the Thirties,” edited by Wayne Koestenbaum, collects many of Neel’s most gorgeous works from the Great Depression and the WPA.
After the Great Depression, hundreds of works of art–from state guidebooks to precious paintings–were literally scrapped. As we struggle through our own economic crisis, publishers are revisiting these lost artifacts. Garrett County Press recently republished the New Orleans City Guide written by WPA-contracted writers and in 2010, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston will mount a large Neel exhibit.