Examples include a fabulous lithograph, called “Sheep Resting,” by the respected Minnesota artist Miriam Ibling and a remarkable 1939 oil painting, “Angus Station, 54 Below,” by another well-known Minnesota artist, Arthur T. Because of this - and because of the nature of work that went to Ah-Gwah-Ching - the exhibition is dominated by images of rivers and rolling farm fields. However, Szott says there seemed to be a regional impulse to capture landscapes. Edwards’ 1936 painting “Communications,” which features a newspaper boy, a telephone operator, a radio announcer, smoke signals and a railroad train. In painting and printmaking, figurative work was the national trend for an example of this, gallery-goers should visit Ingrid E. However, per the standards of the time, these works were unattributed to their creators. Therefore, the exhibition features an impressive collection of carved characters and candlesticks. “Minnesota had a highly developed woodcarving tradition, thanks to its German ancestry,” said Szott. ‘Train Yard’ by Sverre Hanssen, 1936, oil on canvas Its long-winded title: “Thank God and FDR: New Deal Art From Minnesota, Selections from the Ah-Gwah Ching Archive.” The show is well worth a visit, and runs through Nov. Today, the public can admire selections from this collection in a strange but wonderful exhibition at the James J. When Ah-Gwah-Ching eventually closed, in 2007, much of the art went to the Minnesota History Center. A recent exhibition at the Weisman Art Museum displayed some of those works. Meanwhile, the local manager of the WPA/Federal Art Project, a popular artist and administrator named Clement Hauper, took care to ensure that abstract art landed in more tolerant hands at the University of Minnesota. (It was only appropriate - “Ah-gwah-ching” is Ojibwe for “out-of-doors.”) In fact, the hospital became the largest repository of WPA art in the state. But many of the traditional landscape paintings and prints went to the Ah-Gwah-Ching Tuberculosis Hospital near Walker, Minn. As a result, many a high-school gymnasium became graced with a mural courthouses and other public buildings received the art, too. Artists were paid $25 per week (Szott says that’s $360 by today’s standards) in exchange for producing a work of art every 4 to 8 weeks, depending on scale. In Minnesota, by 1940 the program had produced 444 oil paintings, 500 watercolors, and 128 prints. “More art was made by more Minnesotans at this time than any other period of time,” said Brian Szott, art curator for the Minnesota History Center, in a gallery lecture on Tuesday evening.

But fewer folks know about another subset of the WPA, the Federal Art Project: a remarkable - and productive - program that paid artists for doing what they did best. Works Progress Administration (WPA) famously put Americans to work constructing and repairing schools, libraries, parks and highways.

But rather than bail out the big boys, America invested in its workers. Like now, our government resolved to deficit-spend its way out of the economic crisis. With unemployment rising, investment banks collapsing and the stock market plummeting (sound familiar?), he promised a New Deal for America. In 1932, Franklin Delano Roosevelt won the presidency in a landslide election.

3. the wpa spent money on the arts.