VAM galleries including this work:
Berea College | Everyday Life | Kentucky Past and Present || VAM Home

In 1935, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) was created under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to provide economic relief during the Great Depression. The Federal Art Program (FAP), a division of the WPA, was intended to employ out-of-work artists and generate public works of art. The program was a success, ultimately resulting in more than 5,000 new jobs and nearly a quarter of a million works of art for the American public. Frank Long’s Activities of the Region is a part of one of those works of art—a series of ten murals and friezes commissioned by the FAP, each portraying notable industries and activities common to Louisville. This tempera sketch depicts farming activities.

About the Artist

Frank Long was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1906. He studied at the Chicago Institute of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, and the Académie Julian in Paris. He qualified for the 1928 U.S. Olympic track team, but chose to attend art school in Paris instead.

Long lived and worked in Berea, Kentucky, from 1932 to 1942. He created more murals for more Depression-era post offices than any other single artist in America and at the time was considered Kentucky’s foremost painter. His murals can also be seen in other Kentucky cities as well as in Illinois, Indiana, Oklahoma, Maryland, and South Carolina.

After a stint in the Army Corps of Engineers, Long returned to Berea in 1946 to set up a jewelry studio. He left in 1951 to direct the Indian Arts and Crafts Board, a program of the U.S. Interior Department. The job eventually took him to Alaska, New Mexico, and Florida to provide training and support to Native craftspeople. In 1969, he retired to Albuquerque and returned to his art, focusing on jewelry and sculpture.

Classroom Ideas

Discussion: Describe Activities of the Region. Would you have guessed that this work is meant to represent Kentucky? Why or why not? How would you describe the style of the work? Does it remind you of any other works you have seen?

Activity: Make a list of ten activities that you think are important or unique to your own city or town. Divide a large piece of drawing paper into ten panels and sketch ten scenes representing the activities you chose. Have your classmates guess what activities you’ve drawn.

Links

Visit the Mural Conservation web site to learn more about Long’s Murals of Industry and Leisure series for the Louisville courthouse.
[www.muralconservation.com/kentucky2.html]

See Frank Long’s painting Chamber Music at the University of Kentucky Art Museum.
[www.uky.edu/ArtMuseum/luce/folkart/ContemporaryImages/images/pages/Long_jpg.htm]

Find lesson plans and curriculum related to the New Deal and WPA federal art program at WPAmurals.com. The site also includes a list of WPA murals in Kentucky.
[www.wpamurals.com/curricul.htm]
[www.wpamurals.com/Kentucky.htm]