Richard Floethe (1901–1988) was an American artist. He served as the art director of the

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...

's (WPA) Federal Art Project (FAP) New York City poster division and then went on to illustrate numerous books.

Biography

Floethe was born September 2, 1901 in Essen, Germany. He studied at the Dortmund Art School, the Munich State School of Art, and the

Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 200 ...

. Floethe emigrated to the United States in 1928. In 1936 Floethe became the art director of the New York City poster division of the

's (WPA)

Federal Art Project The Federal Art Project (1935–1943) was a New Deal program to fund the visual arts in the United States. Under national director Holger Cahill, it was one of five Federal Project Number One projects sponsored by the Works Progress Administrati ...

(FAP). He served as the director through 1939. He hired the artist

Anthony Velonis Anthony or Antony is a masculine given name, derived from the ''Antonii'', a '' gens'' ( Roman family name) to which Mark Antony (''Marcus Antonius'') belonged. According to Plutarch, the Antonii gens were Heracleidae, being descendants of Anton ...

who introduced the silk-screening process into the program as a way to produce posters. In 1937 he married Louise Lee with whom he had two children. Louise Lee Floethe was the author of children's books and Richard Floethe illustrated many of her books. Floethe turned to illustration after his career with the WPA. Floethe's work was included in the 1944 Dallas Museum of Art exhibition of the

National Serigraph Society The National Serigraph Society was founded in 1940 by a group of artists involved in the WPA Federal Art Project, including Anthony Velonis, Max Arthur Cohn, and Hyman Warsager. The creation of the society coincided with the rise of serigraphs bei ...

. In 1975 he donated a 1939 WPA calendar to the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

. The calendar was an example of New York City Poster Division's work. Floethe died on September 30, 1988, in Sarasota, Florida. Floethe's work is in the

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin Fr ...

, the

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of char ...

, and the Delaware Art Museum.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Floethe, Richard 1901 births 1988 deaths Artists from Essen American illustrators Artists from New York City American male artists German illustrators German male artists German emigrants to the United States