ABSTRACT
Reassessment of the successes and failures of the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) and subsequent New Deal art programs provides needed relief for unemployed artists in the midst of the Great Depression as well as a critique of a body of artworks produced in Texas. The PWAP must be judged on the basis of the objectives of the federal program in contrast and in concert with the aspirations of the artists and the response of the public. The PWAP was a success or a failure to the extent that the program balanced or fumbled the divergent needs and interests of the patron, the artists, and the audience. The New Deal murals take on importance only as material evidence of an unprecedented art project with a story that is a large and complicated one of social, political, economic, and cultural interest. The historic legacy of the New Deal art programs is more complicated than the warehousing of old paintings.
