Resilience during the Great Depression

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Sheets, Tenement Flats

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Question 1

Based on the video, Tenement Flats seems to best reflect which of the following themes?

A	The melting pot of people who have come to live in the U.S.
B	The economic and environmental impact of industrialization in the U.S.
C	The democratic principles and moral values of the U.S. government
D	The hope and spirit of people in communities throughout the U.S.

Question 2

Based on the speakers’ comments, which artistic element contributes most to the positive message and mood they observe in Tenement Flats?

A	the vivid colors and use of bright light in the composition
B	the intricate lines and complex architectural framework
C	the use of shadow to animate forms and dark spaces
D	the flattened forms and shallow pictorial space

Question 3

Although Tenement Flats is not a history painting, how does Sheets’s image serve as a kind of historical document of life in the United States?

A	It documents the economic hardship and loss of jobs that characterized the Great Depression
B	It tells the stories of many of the artist’s friends when he was living and working in California
C	It demonstrates historical, economic, and social changes in the urban environment of Los Angeles
D	It was displayed in the White House during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt

Question 4

Which most accurately describes the U.S. government’s Public Works of Art Program begun in 1933?

A	The depression-era program that paid people for their labor in completing public works projects
B	The first federal program that provided financial support to artists to create their work
C	The housing program that led to urban renewal of declining areas like Bunker Hill
D	The tax-relief program that supported conversion of private homes into low-income residences

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Key points

Like other government programs created to provide jobs during the Great Depression, the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) was started in December 1933 to employ artists like Millard Sheets. After only five months, an exhibition at the Corcoran revealed the program’s success and eventually other federal programs were added to support the arts.
Millard Sheets depicts the Bunker Hill neighborhood in Los Angeles, including both the formerly-grand mansions and new apartment buildings that housed a crowded community. While Sheets documents their humble living conditions, his sunny painting emphasizes the communal spirit and intimate connections that sustained people during the economic crisis of the 1930s.

Go deeper

This painting at the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Selected paintings from the 1934 Corcoran exhibition

See historical images of Bunker Hill

View the online exhibition “America’s Great Depression and Roosevelt’s New Deal”

See murals at the Department of the Interior including Sheets’s 1948 series The Negro’s Contribution in the Social and Cultural Development of America

More to think about

What details did Sheets include in Tenement Flats to describe the lives of the people living there? Consider the condition of the buildings, the figures’ clothing, and activities. How do you think his treatment of these details reinforce the positive themes of the painting? How could the image be painted to tell a much bleaker story?