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Community Art Center

The Community Art Center Program was developed as part of the greater New Deal program in 1936. The New Deal included a series of programs and public projects in which they funded visual arts. One of these programs was the Community Art Center Program. The first federally sponsored community arts center opened in Raleigh, North Carolina in 1936. The New Deal and its projects help establish over 100 community art centers throughout the nation.

The Community Art Center projects created jobs throughout the country. It also sustained jobs for thousands of Americans during and after the Great Depression and established environments where craft workers and artists worked, exhibited, and educated others. The project alone created more than 100,000 separate works, and many of which contain some of the nation's most valuable art. The day to day included art classes, marbling public halls and buildings, building schools, and other interests that motivated artists, or anyone in the field. The Community Art Center Project also provided interest in exhibitions by trying to encourage people to purchase their work. This project was specifically programmed to find local sponsors for artists and their art, and a location for them to work/present in. This is how the program got artists on the payroll.

Although the Community Art Center programs and their goals were to provide jobs for artists and other unemployed citizens in the U.S., it also left legacies in their communities. Post-Great Depression, even after the FAP dissolved, community art centers throughout the U.S. stayed afloat. For example, the Centennial Art Center in Nashville, Tennessee was one of the many original art centers in America as it started in 1933 but was later used as housing during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s. Then, in 1972, the center's bathhouse and swimming pool was converted into what we know today, and officially back as the Centennial Art Center. Funding for these community programs was not easy in the beginning as city and state leaders would have their indifferences. In an interview with Miltred Baker, who was part of the College Art Association, stated that funding was rare for many states she looked over when the New Deal first began, and Community Art Projects were established. One of the states she mentions was Missouri as the board members would make it almost impossible to get anywhere and frustration between unemployed artists and the government increased.

On the other hand, Donald Goodall was a director of the WPA community art center in Utah during the 1930’s and early 40’s. Unlike Missouri at the time, Goodall mentions that the Utah State Institute of Fine Arts was extraordinarily well adapted in its structure for a sponsorship in the arts. In other words, it was possible to increase the state appropriation for the arts and its finances without the difficulty of procedural limitations.

Notable Community Art Centers in the U.S.

State:	Center Name:
Alabama	Healey School Art Gallery Mobile Art Center Dowling Museum Ann Rudd Arts Center
Arizona	Phoenix Art Center Phoenix Children's Art Center
Washington D.C.	Childrens Art Gallery Jackson Art Center Sirtar Art Center
Florida	Bradenton Art Center Coral Gables Art Gallery Daytona Beach Art Center Jacksonville Art Center Jacksonville Negro Art Center Miami Art Center Milton West Art Center Jordan Park Exhibition Center St. Petersburg Art Center
Illinois	Hyde Park Art Center Edwardsville Art Center Tarble Arts Center
Iowa	Sioux City Art Center Ottumwa Art Center
Kansas	Topeka Art Center
Minnesota	Walker Art Center
Mississippi	Delta Art Center Oxford Art Center Sunflower County Art Center
Missouri	Foundry Art Centre George Spiva Center For The Arts Capital Arts
New Mexico	Roswell Museum and Art Center
New York	Harlem Community Art Center The Metropolitan Museum of Art Abrons Art Center
North Carolina	Cary  Art Center and Gallery Durham Arts Center Raleigh Arts Center
Oklahoma	Bristow Art Center Edmond Art Gallery Shawnee Art Gallery
Pennsylvania	Somerset Art Gallery Darlington Arts Center Tacony Art Center
Washington	Spokane Art Center
Wyoming	Lander Art Gallery Ava Community Art Center Basin City Arts Center

Background

The Federal Arts Project (FAP) was funded under the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935. This was one of many projects organized in the New Deal under Franklin D. Roosevelt, and post-Great Depression. The FAP’s goal was to educate citizens all while providing jobs. Although the Community Art Center Program was a relatively small part of the FAP, it still projected its overall goals. Their goals were to employ out-of-work artists in public spaces so that they can create graphic designs, murals, paintings, take photographs, and many more. It was because of these goals the Community Art Center Program targeted areas that were rural/desert areas, poor urban neighborhoods, or other cities that were considered “culturally needy.” This was one of two goals while the first was to provide democratic access to culture.

It is clear this program has had an impact positively around the U.S. as it emphasized on the participation in the production process rather than simply appreciating the finished product. The traditional community art center program in the 30’s encouraged artists to work, and encouraged people to become artists. The people employed in these centers were teachers, former teachers, artists, and project bureaucrats. Over 10,000 artists either worked for a Community Art Center Program, or became notable for their impact and art. Generally, the Community Art Center Project not only brought art to people throughout America, but it also brought together people of diverse racial, religious, and cultural backgrounds through creativity.

Notable Artists

Berenice Abbott  Gertrude Abercrombie  Jack Markow   Mercedes Matter   Jan Matulka  Hugh Mesibov   Sheva Ausubel   Henry Bannarn   Belle Baranceanu   Patrociño Barela     Richmond Barthé   William Baziotes   Lester Beall   Aaron Berkman  Robert Blackburn  Lucile Blanch   Lucienne Bloch   Aaron Bohrod   Ilya Bolotowsky   Adele Brandeis   Louise Brann Edgar Britton   Manuel Bromberg   James Brooks   Selma Burke   Letterio Calapai     Samuel Cashwan   Giorgio Cavallon   Daniel Celentano   Dane Chanase   Fay Chong  Claude Clark    Eldzier Cortor   Arthur Covey   Alfred D. Crimi   Francis Criss   Robert Cronbach  John Steuart Curry   James Daugherty   Stuart Davis   Adolf Dehn   Willem de Kooning  Burgoyne Diller   Isami Doi   Mabel Dwight   Ruth Egri   Jacob Elshin   George Pearse Ennis   Angna Enters   Philip Evergood   Louis Ferstadt   Alexander Finta   Joseph Fleck   Seymour Fogel   Todros Geller   Eugenie Gershoy   Enrico Glicenstein   Bertram Goodman Arshile Gorky  Harry Gottlieb   Blanche Grambs   Morris Graves   Balcomb Greene   Philip Guston   Irving Guyer   Abraham Harriton   Marsden Hartley   Knute Heldner   August Henkel   Ralf Henricksen  Hilaire Hiler   Louis Hirshman   Donal Hord

Impact

Although the Federal Arts Project dissolved in 1943, its projects still have an impact to this day. The National Endowment for the Arts is the largest single funder of arts across America. The NEA accomplishes its funding for the arts by combining the majority of its funding with other local, state, and even federal agencies. Cities are getting grants to help expand and update centers throughout the U.S. The reason for such grants can come for multiple reasons. Recently in April of 2022, a community art center in Johnstown, Pennsylvania received a $13,000 grant for the services it provided for its small community. The grant was specifically used to expand the Log Art Theater Academy for the Cambria Community Art Center. The academy provides children and young adults who have interest in acting, singing, dancing, an environment to express themselves and experience performance art at an early age. Philadelphia has its own share of problems when it comes to graffiti and vandalism. Recently funding the Tacony Art Center to educate children on art and how they can express it in ethical ways by providing classes for free. Another art center in Philadelphia, Northern Liberties, is also getting funded for providing art classes and activities for kids with a lot of free time.

Images

Eccles Art Center, Odgen Utah

Harlem Art Center poster in the 1930's

Two children at the Harlem Community Art Center in 1939