New Deal art by Lawrence Holmberg: "The Black Sun," "The Eldorado," and a "Mystical Landscape"

Above: "The Black Sun," a watercolor painting by Lawrence E. Holmberg (1910-1958), created while he was in the WPA's Federal Art Project, 1937. There isn't much information available on Holmberg, but according to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, he was born in Oregon, 1910, and "maintained a studio in the Montgomery Block in San Francisco in 1935-45." Find A Grave indicates he is buried at Arlington National Cemetery, a veteran of World War II. Image courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

Above: "The Eldorado," another WPA watercolor by Holmberg, ca. 1935-1943. The description for this painting reads: "Illustration of the Edgar Allen Poe story, shows a figure in armor with a lance crossing a wooden bridge, on the far side of which is a covered crucifix and a small adobe church. Fog shrouds pine trees in the background." Image & description courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

Above: This watercolor by Holmberg, also created while he was in the WPA, ca. 1935-1943, does not have a title (or the title has been lost to history), but is described as a "Mystical Landscape," with a "robed figure standing in a desert with a bird of prey; in the background a stone circle (like Stonehenge), trees and hills. Dark, overcast sky." Image & description courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.