Art/Work: Women Printmakers of the WPA

Art/Work: Women Printmakers of the WPA is temporarily closed through May 2, 2024, for a memorial exhibition honoring the life and contributions of Nancy Dorman, a longtime BMA Trustee who passed away in January. The exhibition will reopen on May 3 and stay on view until June 30, 2024.

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In 1943, the U.S. General Services Administration entrusted to the BMA’s care nearly 1,000 prints made by artists employed by the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project (WPA/FAP), which, from 1935 to 1942, offered employment to millions of workers affected by the Great Depression, including artists.

This exhibition features a selection of approximately 50 prints created by women printmakers who gave visual form to the fraught state of American society during the lead up to World War II. At a time when the kinds of work available to women changed, these artists—workers themselves—focused their print production on the human faces of labor and poverty in alignment with swelling communist and socialist movements in the U.S. By attending to labor inside and outside the home, these women used their imagery to call out racial, gendered, and class-based inequities exacerbated by the temporary collapse of a capitalist economy. 

Reexamining the contributions of WPA women artists offers fresh insight into both their moment and the ways these challenges still manifest today. An adjacent gallery will highlight how WPA artists used the printing press to oppose fascism, creating works about the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) even while U.S. citizens were banned from aiding Spain.