New Deal Tree Art (5/5): "Old Willows"

Above: "Old Willows," a color lithograph by Louis Lozowick (1892-1973), created while he was in the WPA's art program, 1940. Notice the car in the background. It looks an awful lot like a Volkswagen Beetle. The VW Beetle was first produced in 1938 and was introduced into the United States in 1949. This could possibly mean that the scene above is in Germany, or that Lozowick actually made this artwork after the New Deal, and it has been misidentified as a WPA project. There could be other explanations too. For example, perhaps Lozowick simply wanted to paint a Beetle under some Willow trees and he didn't have a particular location in mind; or perhaps it isn't a Beetle at all, but a similar-looking vehicle. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.