Depression Era Art featured in two exhibitions

In a collaborative endeavor between Grand Valley and the Muskegon Museum of Art, the GVSU Art Gallery will host an historic exhibition of works created to provide encouragement and economic relief to citizens of the U. S. who were suffering through the Great Depression.

“Regionalism and the Art of the WPA: Selections from the Muskegon Museum of Art,” will have an opening reception Thursday, January 19 from 5-7 p.m. The exhibition will be on view through Friday, March 23. Both the reception and exhibition are open to the public with free admission.

This exhibition of more than 40 works drawn from the MMA’s collection is in conjunction with the MMA’s hosting of “1934: A New Deal for Artists,” organized and circulated by the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., and scheduled in Muskegon for February 16 through May 6. Grand Valley is also a co-sponsor of that exhibit.

The Regionalist art movement reflects a distinct period in U.S. history when, through the New Deal/Works Progress Administration, the federal government understood how essential art was to sustaining America’s spirit, and supported the efforts by artists to define a uniquely American style. These works from the 1930s, with a concentration on a specific geography and culture, emanated in its purest form from the American Midwest of Thomas Hart Benton, John Steuart Curry, and Grant Wood. “Regionalism and the Art of the WPA” includes lithographs, etchings, and woodblock prints by these and other artists who drew their inspiration from their immediate surroundings, both rural and urban.

In conjunction with the exhibit, a series of interdisciplinary programs are planned at the GVSU Art Gallery, Grand Valley’s Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies and at the Muskegon Museum of Art. For a complete schedule and more exhibition information, call the GVSU Art Gallery at (616) 331-2563, or visit www.gvsu.edu/artgallery.

Among the events are a series of films and discussion in the GVSU Art Gallery:

January 26,  6 p.m.
Artists at Work : A Film on the New Deal Art Projects
New Deal Films
Produced and Directed by Mary Lance
35 minutes

and

The Crash of 1929
WGBH Educational Foundation
Produced by Ellen Houve and Muffie Meyer
50 minutes

February 2, 6:00 pm, Art Gallery PAC 1121
Hoover Dam
WGBC Education Foundation
Written, Produced and Directed by Stephen Stept
60 minutes

March 1, 6:00 pm, Art Gallery PAC 1121
Civilian Conservation Corp
WGBH Education Foundation
Written, Produced and Directed by Robert Stone
60 minutes

Light Refreshments will be served.