Go Do Something (LA)

Posters of the WPA (Works Progress Administration)

(1/25/2008 - 4/13/2008)
10:00 AM - 5:00 PM - 1/25/2008
Forest Lawn Glendale - Museum
Free Admission & Parking

One of the most fascinating and vital developments of American graphic design took place between 1935 and 1943, years darkened by the Great Depression and World War II. In this remarkable eight-year period, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) printed two million posters from thirty-five thousand designs. It was an innovative time, characterized by experimentation, fresh ideas, and avant-garde thinking; the result was, as noted at the time by P.M. Weekly, “poster art more vital than any this country has ever known.” And yet in the years that followed, little attention was given to this extraordinary design activity. The story of the WPA posters and the artists who designed them is one of the most interesting and unjustly overlooked chapters in the history of American art.