Joint Venture or Testy Alliance?: The Public Works of Art Project in Minnesota, 1933-34

Authors

Thomas O'Sullivan, Minnesota Historical Society

Date of this Version

1989

Document Type

Article

Comments

Published in Great Plains Quarterly (GPQ 9 (Spring 1989); 89-99).Copyright 1989 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska—Lincoln.

Abstract

Like many American painters of his generation, Syd Fossum left art school under the cloud of the Great Depression. The economic uncertainties of the 1930s only added to the dubious support a young painter in the Midwest might expect. But an unimagined opportunity launched Fossum and many others into unparalleled productivity as artists and self-respect as involved members of the art community and American society. Fossum's own reminiscences suggest the excitement of the moment. He recalled that in December 1933 he received a letter assigning him to the newly formed Public Works of Art Project (PWAP).