Thursday, April 11, 2019

New Deal Sports & Recreation Art (2/10): "Athletics"

Above: "Athletics," a sculpture by Sargent Johnson (1888-1967), created while he was in the WPA, ca. 1940-1942, and located at George Washington High School in San Francisco. Johnson gave much credit to the WPA for keeping him active in the arts, saying, "It's the best thing that ever happened to me because it gave me more of an incentive to keep on working, where at the time things looked pretty dreary and I thought about getting out of it because, you know, I come from a family of people who thought all artists were drunkards and everything else. I thought I'd given it up at one time but I think the WPA helped me to stay." Photo by Gray Brechin.

Above: A close-up of the baseball section of "Athletics."

Above: A close-up of the crew and diving sections of "Athletics."

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