dieser beitrag wurde verfasst in: englisch (eng/en)
künstler: Ilya Bolotowsky, Harry Bowden, Byron Browne, Francis Criss, Stuart Davis, Willem de Kooning, Balcomb Greene, Paul Kelpe, Jan Matulka, George McNeil, Eugene Morley, Albert Swinden
titel: Several abstract murals
jahr: 1937
adresse: Williamsburg Housing Project (meeting rooms, basement), 176 Maujer Street, Brooklyn, NY, USA
+: WPA funded murals, supervised by Burgoyne Diller, a fellow member of American Abstract Artists and the head of the New York division of the New York Mural Department of the WPA. Partly painted over. Surviving abstract murals by Francis Criss and Stuart Davis are in the National Collection of Fine Arts and Indiana University Museum of Fine Arts respectively, others in the Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn. A number of abstract sculptures were also designed for Williamsburg Houses.
«In an essay for Art for the Millions, written in 1936—7, Diller emphasised that the murals were intended to match the 'functional' character of the architecture [by William Lescaze], and stressed that their role was to provide 'relaxation and entertainment for the tenants': 'The more arbitrary color, possible when not determined by the description of objects, enables the artist to place an emphasis on its psychological potential to stimulate relaxation.' Some of the artists involved would have claimed a great deal more for their contributions. However, I do not imply by this that they shared a common viewpoint, and the Williamsburg Project can be seen as a site at which different conceptions of pictorial modernism squared off, and particularly those of Davis and Greene.» (from: Hemingway, 2002)