Part 1
Part of the New Deal, the package of legislation and policies that the FDR administration instituted to deal with the Great
Depression in the 1930s, was the employment of artists and photographers by the Works Progress Administration and the Farm Security Administration to make art about the lives of everyday Americans.See - Look at these three photographs from New Deal photographers. Describe them in detail.
Think/Feel - What thoughts and feelings do these images evoke? Speculate about meanings or interpretations that the work might generate for viewers? What does each of the works seem to say about the people depicted?
Connect
1) What thoughts do you have about the race, class, gender, and age of the subjects? Speculate about why this specific intersectional identity shows up so frequently in New Deal art.
Part 2
See - Now look at and describe these two pieces, one by Morris Topchevsky and one by Gordon Parks.
Think/Feel - What thoughts and feelings do these images evoke? Speculate about meanings or interpretations that the work might generate for viewers? What does each of the works seem to say about the people depicted?
Connect2) What thoughts do you have about the race, class, gender, and age of the subjects? How do they tell a different story about the U.S. in the Depression than the famous photographs above?
Read about Gordon Parks's photograph here.
3) What was Parks's own experience of racism in the time, and how was the photograph a response to that.
Read about Morris Topchevsky here.
4) How does Topchevsky's work reflect his career of arts education and advocacy?
Reporting Policy