The Spokane Art Center in

Spokane, Washington Spokane ( ) is the largest city and county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It is in eastern Washington, along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, south of the Canada ...

, was a community art school opened in 1938 as part 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 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 ...

during the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

. Its staff included many notable artists, and it was widely considered to be one of the nation's most successful FAP art centers. It closed in 1942.

Background

The Federal Art Project was headed by

Holger Cahill Edgar Holger Cahill (January 13, 1887 – July 8, 1960) was an Icelandic-American curator, writer, and arts administrator who served as the national director of the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration during the New Deal in t ...

from its inception in 1935 to its end in 1943. In addition to supporting impoverished artists, and producing artwork for federal government use, Cahill saw the FAP's mission as maintaining the health of American art generally; to this end, support was given to the creation of community art centers, aimed at providing instruction and education for adults and children, as well as gallery space for local and touring WPA/FAP art exhibitions. Working closely with local officials and arts organizations, regional and state FAP directors located areas where interest and support were strong. Once a municipality was able to provide a location and seed money, FAP would provide three to four times the amount in matching funds, as well as teachers, directors, and other staff. The first center opened in

Winston-Salem Winston-Salem is a city and the county seat of Forsyth County, North Carolina, United States. In the 2020 census, the population was 249,545, making it the second-largest municipality in the Piedmont Triad region, the 5th most populous city in N ...

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

, in 1935. Open to all, free of charge, with no race restrictions, the centers proved tremendously popular - despite complaints from some Congressmen and editorialists that they were frivolous and wasteful expenditures. Eventually, 103 FAP art centers were established across the nation, in all 48 states, along with many similar, locally-funded programs.

History

The Spokane Art Center was the fiftieth free community art school established under the Federal Art Project. It came about as the result of meetings between Washington State FAP director R. Bruce Inverarity and members of the Spokane Arts Association (many of whom subsequently became SAC Board members). Despite his ardent opposition to President

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

and his

New Deal The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Cons ...

programs, local newspaperman and business magnate William H. Cowles donated the use of a spacious, three-storey building, while a fund-drive by Parent-Teacher Associations, businesses, and arts associations produced more-than-adequate startup money, gaining $12,000 in federal funds. The center officially opened on September 29, 1938, under the directorship of Carl Morris, a Californian who had been hired by Inverarity.Mahoney, Eleanor: ''The Spokane Arts Center: Bringing Art to the People''; The Great Depression in Washington State website; http://depts.washington.edu/depress/spokane_art_center.shtml retvd 1 31 15 The teaching staff included, at various times, artists Robert Engard,

Guy Anderson Guy Anderson (November 20, 1906 – April 30, 1998) was an American artist known primarily for his oil painting who lived most of his life in the Puget Sound region of the United States. His work is in the collections of numerous museums inc ...

Clyfford Still Clyfford Still (November 30, 1904 – June 23, 1980) was an American painter, and one of the leading figures in the first generation of Abstract Expressionists, who developed a new, powerful approach to painting in the years immediately follo ...

, Hilda Grossman, Z. Vanessa Helder,

Joseph Solman Joseph Solman (January 25, 1909 – April 16, 2008) was an American painter, a founder of The Ten, a group of New York City Expressionist painters in the 1930s. His best known works include his "Subway Gouaches" depicting travelers on the New ...

Margaret Tomkins Margaret Tomkins (1916–2002) was an American Surrealism, Surrealist / Abstract expressionism, Abstract Expressionist painter. Though born, raised, and educated in Southern California, she spent most of her life in the Pacific Northwest, where s ...

, James FitzGerald,Guennther, Bruce; Oral history interview with Margaret Tomkins, 1984 June 6, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-margaret-tomkins-12308 retvd 01 01 15 Kenneth Downer, and Ruth Egri.Oral history interview of the board of the Spokane Art Center, 1965 November 18, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution; http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-board-spokane-art-center-12298; retvd 1 31 15 FitzGerald eventually took over from Morris as the center's director. Centrally located at North 106 Monroe Street in downtown Spokane, the center attracted several hundred enrollees for adult and children's classes in

painting Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ...

drawing Drawing is a form of visual art in which an artist uses instruments to mark paper or other two-dimensional surface. Drawing instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, various kinds of paints, inked brushes, colored pencils, crayons, ...

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

printmaking Printmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand processed techniq ...

metalwork Metalworking is the process of shaping and reshaping metals to create useful objects, parts, assemblies, and large scale structures. As a term it covers a wide and diverse range of processes, skills, and tools for producing objects on every scale ...

, and

ceramics A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain ...

. Lectures on art history were well-attended, and thousands of people viewed exhibitions presented in the Center's gallery. Despite these successes, avant garde-minded staffers at times butted heads with more conservative Spokanites, and Inverarity's plan to open more community art centers statewide raised considerable ire among the Spokane Art Center's backers, who saw it as a diversion of already sparse resources. These controversies, however, were soon overshadowed by changing wartime priorities, and the Center was shut down in November 1942. In 1952 the name and the basic concept of the Spokane Art Center were revived, in a new location, under the aegis of

Washington State University Washington State University (Washington State, WSU, or informally Wazzu) is a public land-grant research university with its flagship, and oldest, campus in Pullman, Washington. Founded in 1890, WSU is also one of the oldest land-grant unive ...

; in 1963 it became the Corbin House Arts and Crafts Center, and in 1970 the Corbin Art Center, operated by Spokane's department of Parks and Recreation.Corbin Art Center website; ; retvd 1 31 15

References

External links

Smithsonian Institution
Spokane Art Center records, 1939-1952. {{Authority control Federal Art Project Culture of Spokane, Washington Education in Spokane, Washington Works Progress Administration in Washington (state)