New Deal Art: "Machine Fodder"

Above: "Machine Fodder," an artwork by Carl Hoeckner, created while he was in the WPA's Federal Art Project, 1938. Hoeckner was born in Munich, Germany, in 1883, and died in Berkeley, California, in 1972. In 1939, the Artists' Union of Chicago proposed to add public art to Chicago's subway, and Hoeckner helped lead the effort: "Carl Hoeckner, easel painter and president of the union, and Edward Miller, muralist and chairman of the union's public use of art committee, pointed out that the New York City council had decided to shatter the gloom of underworld transportation with federal arts decorations in the new city owned subway." For Chicago's subway, the artists imagined "pony express riders and airplanes carrying the mail, workers swinging hammers in rhythm with the machine age, a group of nudes weaving a daisy chain, or perhaps a fawn drinking from a pool." ("Artists Propose To Light Gloom Of Our Subway," Chicago Tribune, May 5, 1939, p. 31). Image courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.