Monday, December 11, 2017

A New Deal Winter & Christmas: "Christmas in Paris"

Above: "Christmas in Paris," a crayon lithograph by Mabel Dwight (1876-1955), created while she was in the WPA's Federal Art Project, 1939. Dwight studied art in San Francisco and Paris and, "During the mid-1920s she produced a series of lithographs that earned her international recognition... Her main artistic interest was in people engaged in every-day pursuits or on holiday in the New York City area..." ("Mabel Dwight, Artist, Dies," Philadelphia Enquirer, September 6, 1955). Image courtesy of the General Services Administration and the Baltimore Museum of Art.

Above: This is a fantastic hand-colored lithograph that Mabel Dwight made in 1928, around the time of her rising fame. It shows an aquarium scene in New York. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Above: A self-portrait, created by Mabel Dwight in 1932. Dwight had no immediate survivors when she died, and there doesn't appear to be many (or any) photos of her online, so it's possible that this is the only image we have for her. When she became a WPA artist in the mid-to-late 1930s, she had either fallen on hard times (private buying of art dried up during the Depression) or she could've been hired into a supervisory or teaching position. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

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