Above: "Difficulty of Thought," a lithograph by Shirley Staschen, created while she was in the WPA, ca. 1935-1943. Staschen was born in Oakland in 1914, was largely self-taught, and during a 1964 oral history interview with the Smithsonian she recalled how the WPA helped her artwork: "I feel that it contributed a great deal to my development and it provided the facilities. It provided the stimulation of working with other people doing the same thing." But she also noted the downside: "There was never anything very sure about it from the beginning of those poor men with the shovels, and the wild effort that was being made there. It never, in a way, got any more sure than that. From one week to another, you would never have the feeling that it was sure. They might close down the mural. They might decide not to finish it. The whole thing might fold. There was never any kind of real security." Image courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Above: "End of the Clue," another WPA lithograph by Shirley Staschen, 1940. A 1960 newspaper article reported that Staschen "exhibited at the Oakland Museum of Art, The Golden Gate International Exposition, and Lucien Labudt Gallery, San Francisco. She has taught art to children at the San Francisco and Children's Hospital, conducted art classes and assisted on mural painting at the Coit Tower, the San Francisco Aquatic Park and San Francisco Junior College" ("Sebastopol Sidelights," The Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, California), August 28, 1960). Image courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Above: "The Search," another WPA lithograph by Shirley Staschen, ca. 1935-1943. In 1964, when asked what happened to the art she created in the WPA, Staschen said, "I have no idea at all what has happened to the work." Staschen died on November 26, 1995, in San Rafael, California. Image courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.
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