New Deal Art: "Local Industries"

Above: "Local Industries," an oil painting and mural study by Natalie Smith Henry (1907-1992), created while she was in the New Deal's Section of Fine Arts, ca. 1940. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

(A closer look at the left-half of the painting.)

(A closer look at the right-half of the painting.)

New Deal Art: "Spring Flowers"

Above: "Spring Flowers," an oil painting by Kathryne Hail Travis (1894-1972), created while she was in the New Deal's Public Works of Art Project, ca. 1934. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

New Deal Art: "Trysting at Evening"

Above: "Trysting at Evening," an oil painting by Josephine Joy (1869-1948), created while she was in the WPA's Federal Art Project, ca. 1935-1939. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

New Deal Art: Wharf Markets of Monterey, California

Above: "Wharf Markets," an egg tempera on paperboard by artist Victor Hugo Basinet (1889-1956), created while he was in the WPA's Federal Art Project, 1936. The painting shows a scene in Monterey, California. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

New Deal Art: "Mirror Pool"

Above: "Mirror Pool," an oil and graphite painting by Vincent Canade (1879-1961), created while he was in the WPA's Federal Art Project, ca. 1935-1936. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Remembering Tamiris, Part 7: How Long, Brethren?

(A WPA poster promoting Tamiris's "Negro Spirituals," and also her production of How Long, Brethren?, 1937. Image courtesy of George Mason University, Special Collections & Archives.)

During her time as a WPA choreographer, Helen Tamiris's most successful dance production was How Long, Brethren? It ran from May 6 to July 4, 1937, at the Nora Bayes Theatre at 216 W. 44th Street; re-opened in July at the Maxine Elliot Theatre at 109 W. 39th Street; and, as you can see from the poster above, had a return engagement at the 49th Street Theatre in December. 

How Long, Brethren? was based on African American songs of protest, and told of "poverty, starvation, injustice, and death. The final song ended in a plea to change all this." The production included an African American chorus and a full orchestra. Tamiris's choreography and dancing stunned the audience: "The simple and honest movement and the eloquent design made the opening night audience stand up and cheer. In fact, the reaction was so whole-hearted and spontaneous that the show was interrupted many times by applause and shouts so loud the dancers could not hear the orchestra or the chorus in the pit" (Christina L. Schlundt, Helen Tamiris: A Chronicle of Her Dance Career, 1927-1955, New York Public Library, 1972, pp. 46 and 52-53).

On June 20, 1937, the following was reported in the New York Times: "Tamiris, director and premiere danseuse of the Federal Theatre dance drama, 'How Long, Brethren?' received the Dance Magazine's annual award of excellence in a formal presentation last night at the Nora Bayes Theatre, where the production is now running. Her direction of the group choreography in 'How Long, Brethren?' was termed the 'most brilliant for the year 1936-37.'"

Remembering Tamiris, Part 6: Helen Tamiris, Walt Whitman, and the WPA

(A WPA poster promoting Tamiris's dance production of Salut au Monde. The poster was created by artist Richard Halls in 1936, and the dance production was based on Walt Whitman's poem of the same name. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.)

In the program for her WPA production of Salut au Monde, Helen Tamiris wrote:

"Salut au Monde, of all Whitman's poems, furnishes a prophetic insight into the problems of the American people and of the rest of mankind today. In it Whitman portrays Man the Individual, surrounded by nature and the environment created by his own efforts, struggling for his existence in the process of which he has created his crafts, his arts, his customs, his lands, his cities, his industries, his religions, his cultures and civilizations, his joys and sufferings - all that sustains man. And through all these innumerable forces and changes, he sees the divine right of the individual, regardless or race, sex, religion, country, social position, material wealth, or individual differences.

'Each of us inevitable,
Each of us limitless--each of us with his or her right upon the earth,
Each of us allow'd the eternal purports of the earth,
Each of us here as divinely as any is here.'

--Walt Whitman, 1881"    

Salut au Monde played from July 23, 1936 to August 5, 1936. It played at various locations, for example, the Henry Street Settlement on July 23 (New York Times, July 19, 1936) and the McMillin Academic Theatre at Columbia University on August 5 (New York Times, August 2, 1936).

(Tamiris's quote above is from: Christena L. Schlundt, Tamiris: A Chronicle of Her Dance Career, 1927-1955, New York Public Library, 1972, p. 51)