The Paintings of Francis Criss joined the Works Progress Administration in 1935, working with Burgoyne Diller, Jan Matulka, and Stuart Davis on abstract murals for the Williamsburg Federal Housing Project in New York City. He was a charter member of the American Artists' Congress, organized in 1936 as a response to the Depression and the growth of fascism. He was also a founding member of the socially concerned "American Group" which included Philip Evergood, Jack Levine, and William Gropper. In 1938, he participated in the first exhibition of the World Alliance for Yiddish Culture along with Stuart Davis and Chaim Gross.

Stuart Davies worked for the Federal Art Project in the 1930s and became involved in the art politics of the Depression, being elected president of the Artists' Union established to combat discrimination in the distribution of public funds to artists. In 1936 he was one of the founder members of the American Artists' Congress but resigned disillusioned four years later.
  . biography

During the Depression, Dwight participated in the art programs of the New Deal's Works Progress Administration (WPA), but she also produced anti-fascist images and works that railed against capitalist war profiteers. In 1935, she was among the first 17 women to support the American Artists' Congress against the spread of fascism.
    . Self Portrait, 1932, lithograph
    . NWWA: Profile of Mabel Dwight

Evergood was a member of the American Artists Congress; Artists Union (president); United American Artists; Artists Committee of Action, Artists League of America; American Society of Painters, Sculptors and Gravers; An America Group; National society of Mural Painters; Artists Equity Association (founding member), etc.

In November 1935, Fisk reestablished his ties with progressive, politically active artists when his work was included in the group exhibition of the American Artists' Congress held at the ACA Gallery in New York. [70] Eighty-eight artists participated in the exhibition which was organized by Fisk's long-time friend Stuart Davis, executive secretary of the Congress and who later served as the group's national chairman. Davis wrote in the exhibition brochure that:

. . . . the purpose of this exhibition, held by the sponsors of the Call for an American Artists' Congress, has as its primary function, the raising of funds to help finance the Congress [which will be dedicated] against Fascism and War and for the Defense of Culture. . . .

The exhibition preceded the formal opening of the Congress, which was staged at the New School for Social Research in New York City in February 1936. [71] Fisk was among the original signers for the call against war and fascism, joining over 480 artists from across the United States and Mexico. It was a large, broad-based alliance of artists who were aimed:

. . . to achieve unity of action among artists of recognized standing in their profession on all issues which concern their economic and cultural security and freedom, and to fight War Fascism and Reaction, destroyers of art and culture.[72]

Two years later, in June 1938, Fisk traveled to New York City to visit with friends and see exhibitions. At Davis's invitation, Fisk attended the Federal Art Project dinner at Town Hall and later accompanied him to see his mural Swing Landscape hanging in Federal Art Projects' Murals for the Community at the Federal Art Gallery. [73]

I had an interesting time at the Federal Art dinner that was held at the Town Hall, Stuart Davis dragged me to it. It was a great success, speeches over the radio by heads of various projects. . . . It was very very impressive and very stimulating to me. . . . The evening was devoted to "Art in Democracy" - Many well known political figures in N.Y.Cy. spoke. The mayor was absent but had a representative. There seems to be a tremendous interest in what is being done here. Stuart's mural that is on exhibition in the Federal Art Gallery on 57th St. Is stunning and is one of the most objective abstractions that I have seen. It fairly sings in its gorgeous color spacing. I was really carried off my feet. It made the rest of the work look like enlarged drawings or illustrations. That boy has something.[74]

FOOTNOTES:
70. Exhibition: American Artists' Congress, ACA Gallery, 52 West 8th Street, New York City, November 10-23, 1935. The exhibition brochure lists exhibited artists, not specific works.
71. First American Artists Congress, Town Hall and New School for Social Research, New York City, February I4-16, 1936. The Congress mounted large exhibitions and produced traveling shows: sponsored lectures and symposia; pressed the U.S. Congress to establish a permanent Bureau of Fine Arts; counseled museums to pay rental fees to exhibited artists; and joined with other groups in advancing legislation favorable to the growth of the arts in America.
72. See papers published in Erst American Art-k.& Congress (New York: American Artists Congress, I 936); reprinted in Artists Agakt W&-and Fasck-m. Papers of the Fii-st American Artists Congress, Matthew Baigell and Julia Williams, eds., (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1986). Fisk-s membership card is in the Edward Fisk papers, Fisk family archives.
73. Federal Art Projects- Murals for the Communip, Federal Art Gallery, 225 West 57th Street, New York City, May 24-June 15, 1938. Swing Time was painted for the Williamsburg Housing Project in Brooklyn, but never installed. Davis's seven by four-teen foot oil on canvas is presently in the collection of the Indiana University Art Museum in Bloomington.
74. Letter from Edward Fisk written June I938 to his wife Lucy Spalding Fisk. Edward Fisk papers, Fisk family archives

A Modern Life

Gellert organized and delivered the keynote address at First American Artists Congress (Fascism, War and the Artists) in 1936 and in 1937 organized the Mural Artists Guild of the United Scenic Painters, AFL-CIO in 1937. He addressed the second session of Artist's Congress. In the 1938s he painted murals for the Communications Building in the New York World's Fair and from 1939 to 1941 was active in organizing artists; he was chairman of the committee of delegates of 16 artists' societies that exhibited 1500 paintings, sculpture and graphics from all 48 states at the New York World's Fair. He served on the board as chairman of Artists for Defense and after Pearl Harbor, started organizing Artists for Defense into Artists for Victory, an organization that eventually included 10,000 members.   Graphic Witness

. The Working Day, no 37, ca. 1933, lithograph features a white miner standing back to back with a black industrial worker. The print is part of the portfolio Karl Marx' 'Capital' in Lithographs that Gellert published in France in 1933 with text from Marx's Das Kapital, which reads in part, "Labor with a white skin cannot emancipate itself where labor with a black skin is branded."
. The Art and Activism of Hugo Gellert
. History of a Controversy
. Wounded Striker & Soldier,
  An "American Artists Congress" print
  illustrated in "Commemorative Exhibition...
  ...American Artists Congress, 1936-1942"
  ACA Galleries, N.Y. 1986

Born in Virginia in 1903, Gwathmey was a member of the Artists Union, Artists Equity in New York City, and the American Artists Congress, Gwathmey participated in the social movements of the Left and joined the Communist party in the 1930s.

Knaths was born in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. He studied at the Milwaukee Art Institute and the Art Institute of Chicago. "In 1919, he settled for the rest of his life in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Building his own house, he lived simply and modestly while earning a distinctive national reputation. In his unique Cubism he combined subtle color, varying textures and arbitrary shapes. He was one of the original exhibitors with American Abstract Artists in 1937..."

Japanese/American painter Kuniyoshi was a native of Japan, born in Okayama, and came to the United States with his family in 1906. He received artistic training at the Los Angeles School of Art, and after 1910, moved to New York where he attended the National Academy of Design, the Robert Henri School, the Independent School, and the Art Students League. He was infuenced by the works of "Pop" Hart and Jules Pascin. In the 1920s he visited Paris and spent several summers in Ogunquit, Maine before designing and building a studio on Ohayo Mountain in Woodstock, New York where he would spend summers the remainder of his life. [source: AskArt.com]

Lefranc established the Guild Art Gallery at 37 West 57th Street, New York City in 1931/32, where she showed the works of American artists [ Arshile Gorky, Lloyd Ney, Marsden Hartley, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, and Chaim Gross], and was a signer of the 1st American Artists' Congress and hosted the congress exhibits for two years.

Lozowick was born in Russia and studied at the Kiev Art School. He came to New York in 1906 and studied at the National Academy of Design. . He graduated from Ohio State University in 1918 and then went to Europe where he was influenced by the Constructivists, De Stijl and Bauhaus philosophies. He served on the editorial board of the New Masses and was in the graphics division of the New York City WPA from 1934 to 1940. His lithographic work featured his interest in the repetitious form of windows, pipes, towers, tanks and smokestacks of the factories, skyscrapers and bridges of New Jersey and New York   [adapted from: Dr. Leslie Project]

Born in Chicago, Lundeberg moved to Pasadena, California at the age of four. In 1930 she studied art at the Stickney School of Art in Pasadena, where she was influenced by her teacher, Lorser Feitelson, whom she later married. In 1933 they co-founded an art movement called 'New Classicism' or 'Post-Surrealism.' Lundeberg wrote its first theoretical manifesto the following year. She did realistic mural and easel projects for the Federal Art Project from 1933-1942, while continuing to do more experimental work privately. In 1936, she, along with others involved in her movement held shows in New York's Brooklyn Museum and the Museum of Modern Art.

When Helen Lundeberg painted Double Portrait of the Artist in Time, she was interested in painting "surreal" pictures that had an air of mystery about them. She wanted her pictures to make the impossible book possible, to appear sensible and logical even though the situation they depicted was not at all believable. Becuase of her thoughtful introspective style, Lundeberg was called a "poet among painters."

Mangravite was born on the island of Lipari off Sicily in a small penal colony for political prisoners and immigrated to New York City in 1923 and moved to Washington DC in 1924. "He began the study of art from a prisoner artist. After moving to New York in 1914 he studied at Cooper Union and then entered the Arts Students League under the instruction of Robert Henri. Most of his canvases were completed in one day after weeks and weeks of preparation. There is an extreme lyrical movement to all his works. Though the depression years as well as World War II were subjects of many of his works, his overlying theme however was that, 'the creative spirit of man cannot be destroyed'."  [SVAM Exhibit]

He was a member of the Board of Directors of Artists Equity Association in New York City in the late 1940s and early 50s. He taught at a number schools (inculding D.H.) in the 1950s and was head of the art department at Sara Lawrence.

"I thought the Thirties was a very vital time for American art . . . With the WPA, you got together whether it was the [Artists'] Union or the [American Artists'] Congress or whether it was a bar . . . and you talked about art, and you heard about important artists, and you began to live art."

Pereira was involved with the United American Artists, American Artists' Congress, and Artists' League of America; she was a founder and teacher of the Design Laboratory for the WPA's Federal Art Project, where she taught from 1935 to 1939.

In the late 1920s, Schapiro became a supporter of the Communist Party and was active in its cultural organizations, the John Reed clubs and the First American Artists' Congress, at which he read an important paper, "The Social Bases of Art" (1936).

That year, however, also marked the beginning of a political evolution on Schapiro's part under the influence of Leon Trotsky's fight against the Stalinist perversion of Marxism. He joined the editorial board of the anti-Stalinist Marxist Quarterly (to which he contributed a seminal essay in 1937, "Nature of Abstract Art"), endorsed the American Committee for the Defense of Leon Trotsky and, after the Stalin-Hitler pact in 1939, led a major breakaway from the Stalinist-controlled Artists' Congress. The program of Schapiro's group was largely based on a manifesto on revolutionary art that Trotsky and Surrealist poet Andre Breton had issued a year earlier. In the factional struggle that split the Socialist Workers Party, then the American Trotskyist movement, in 1939-40, Schapiro--although he never joined the party--was one of the few intellectuals who sympathized with the proletarian majority led by James Cannon

Sternberg had watched the deteriorating political situation in Europe with mounting horror since the early 1930s, and campaigned against fascism as an active member of the American Artists' Congress. His personal fears of the rise of European fascism were justified; most of his mother's family, who were Hungarian Jews, died in the Holocaust.