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. FREE. REGISTER
When the FAP ended in 1943, the Saint Louis Art Museum received a trove of 256 prints, drawings, watercolors and paintings. The exhibition draws from this rich collection to explore how this federal program expanded opportunities to create and encounter art in many different communities, some of which historically lacked the necessary infrastructure and support for the arts. Works by African American, Asian American, female-identifying and immigrant artists testify to the New Deal’s ambition to nourish individuals and communities through the arts.
John Ott is Professor of Art History at James Madison University and Amy Torbert is the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Associate Curator of American Art at the Saint Louis Art Museum and co-curator, with Clare Kobasa, of the museum’s current exhibition The Work of Art: The Federal Art Project, 1935–1943. Their conversation will offer a behind-the-scenes look at the planning process for this show, relate forgotten and untold stories from our nation's artistic past and illuminate neglected contributions from women, immigrant and minority artists. FREE. REGISTER
The Living New Deal documents the vast legacy the New Deal (1933-1942) left to America
and the spirit of public service that inspired it.
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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.
When the FAP ended in 1943, the Saint Louis Art Museum received a trove of 256 prints, drawings, watercolors and paintings. The exhibition draws from this rich collection to explore how this federal program expanded opportunities to create and encounter art in many different communities, some of which historically lacked the necessary infrastructure and support for the arts. Works by African American, Asian American, female-identifying and immigrant artists testify to the New Deal’s ambition to nourish individuals and communities through the arts.