New Deal Tree Art (1/5): "Reforestation"

Above: "Reforestation," a mural study painting by Hollis Holbrook (1909-1984), created while he was in the New Deal's Section of Fine Arts, ca. 1940. Holbrook graduated from the Massachusetts School of Art in 1934, the Yale School of Fine Arts in 1936, and then went on to become a faculty member at the University of Florida's Art Department ("A Guide to the Hollis H. Holbrook Papers," University of Florida Smathers Libraries). Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Above: A closer look at the left-hand side of the mural study.

Above: A closer look at the right-hand side of the mural study. Reforestation was big during the New Deal, with the CCC planting several billion trees; and other work programs, like the WPA, planting tens of millions of other trees.