painting

Could be associated with the Public Works of Art Project. See www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/1934-the-art-of-the-n... "Thus was born the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), which in roughly the first four months of 1934 hired 3,749 artists and produced 15,663 paintings, murals, prints, crafts and sculptures for government buildings around the country."

Evening star. January 03, 1934, Page B-1, Image 17 chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1934-01-03/ed-... shows another H&E photo from LOC and says, "FORTY-FIVE heretofore unemployed artists were plying pencils, pens and brushes in various sections of the District today, turning out virtually every type of art work as a part of the recently inaugurated public works of art project. At least eight of the artists were working under the supervision of Dr William M. Mann, director of the Zoo, most of them designing and coloring make-believe deserts, jungles and mountainsides. Other artists were working away at oil paintings and murals, to be hung in schools and libraries; posters, for use by the Department of Commerce, the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation and other branches of the Government; studies of life in the Civilian Conservation Corps, and an almost unlimited variety of other work."

It looks like they are glue/sizing the canvas /wall hanging and the pot has some electrical heating device. I have used a similar device for rabbit's skin glue for making a canvas taut after stretching but they seem to be doing this to the surface of the paintings themselves ..neither of which are on stretchers. This indicates that they may be using the glue size as a binder for the pigment, a technique that pre-dates oil painting. The painting style is similar to Franz Marc the German artist and member of Der Blaue Reiter who died in WW1 but these are clearly not by him. It looks like the jars on the table may well contain dry /rawpigment

swanq was right! We recently found some old catalog cards for Harris & Ewing that had a caption for this photo. The caption for this photo should be: "WORK ON PUBLIC WORKS OF ARTS PROJECT PROGRAM. These three Washington artists are preparing batiks which are intended to decorate some federal building. Working under the terms of the Public Works of Art Project in Region no. 4, these and other men and women are supporting themselves and at the same time practicing their chosen profession. From the left--Jane L. McKenzie, Lee Bartlett, and Hugh Collins, all of Washington. The practice of the government giving direct financial assistance to artists is a new venture in this country, although such a plan has been followed for some time in foreign countries, particularly France and Mexico."

Swanq is a Grade A sleuth

Fantastica serie di 21 foto d'epoca della costruzione di questa nave!

ESTELLE THOMSON. A versatile little lady is Mrs. Estelle Thomson, the author of a charming booklet on Australian wild flowers. Living in happy domesticity in her home on the Eight Mile Plains, she is within easy reach of her beloved bush and its rich harvest of shrub and vine and flower. Mrs. Thomson chose her parents well, inheriting from one her love of nature, and from the other artistry that with a deft touch of pencil and brush can make form and colour the medium of her beauty. At the beginning of the year, Mrs. Thomson was elected as President of the Queensland Naturalist Club, an honour that has only been accorded to one other woman in this State. Botanists, of course, have named and labelled all our Queensland flowers. Mrs. Thomson is interested in an attempt being made to add fanciful descriptive names to many of these flowers—names that the children growing up will remember and love. Not content with helping her own three young Queenslanders to study nature, she has visited a country school week-in and week-out to teach the students there something of the joy and loveliness he found in bushland. A fitting title for her is surely this: "The little lady of the flowers." FLAME. Source: trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/182842542# The Week, 27, May 1931