Above: "Russian Sailor Dance," a color woodcut print by Antonina Mancuso, created while she was in the WPA, ca. 1939-1940. Hardly any definitive information on Mancuso exists on the Internet or in newspaper archives (but see below). I did comes across a Find A Grave entry for an "Antonina Mancuso" (1909-1994), but it's not clear whether this is the same person. Image courtesy of the General Services Administration and the Kelvin Smith Library, Case Western Reserve University.
Above: This image is on the website of the Internet Archive here. It is a 1940 entry form to display artwork at the Cleveland Museum of Art., and lists "Russian Sailor Dance." It is written in Mancuso's own writing - note how the prominent "T" in "Antonina" is the same as we see at the bottom of the artwork above. Note also that, for price, she lists "N.F.S.", presumably "Not For Sale," which was probably due to a WPA restriction on artists selling their publicly-funded artworks. Nevertheless, showing the art in an exhibition could obviously help an artist get noticed; and, indeed, there were exhibitions specifically for WPA artists to show off their work, as well as exhibitions for children who created art in WPA art classes (see examples below).
Above: A WPA poster, promoting an exhibit of art created in the WPA's Federal Art Project. This type of exhibit could help artists, like Mancuso, get noticed and perhaps even get offers of paid art work outside the WPA. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Above: A WPA poster, promoting an exhibit of artwork created by children in WPA art classes. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.
No comments:
Post a Comment