In 1934, working for the Public Works of Art Project, the first of the New Deal art programs, 25 master artists and their assistants painted 27 murals inside San Francisco’s iconic Coit Tower. Nearly all of them were influenced by Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. Communist symbols in some of the murals sparked the first of many national controversies over New Deal art.
Historian Dr. Robert W. Cherny is professor emeritus of history at San Francisco State University. He has authored many books, including Victor Arnatuoff and the Politics of Art (2017),Harry Bridges: Labor Radical, Labor Legend (2023), and San Francisco Reds: Communists in the Bay Area. His new book is The Coit Tower Murals: New Deal Art and Political Controversy in San Francisco (University of Illinois Press, 2024).
New Deal historian Harvey Smith, who wrote the interpretative signage for the Coit Tower murals, is author of Berkeley and the New Deal (Arcadia Publishing, 2014) and Project Advisor to the Living New Deal. REGISTER
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In 1934, working for the Public Works of Art Project, the first of the New Deal art programs, 25 master artists and their assistants painted 27 murals inside San Francisco’s iconic Coit Tower. Nearly all of them were influenced by Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. 
Communist symbols in some of the murals sparked the first of many national controversies over New Deal art.