Left: Self-Portrait, Noble Wilbur Curry, oil, 1936
All the paintings featured here are owned by members of Noble Curry's family. Please request permission to reproduce them in any form.
The controversial but successful program of the Franklin D. Roosevelt presidency, the Works Progress Administration (WPA), part of the New Deal, funded the Federal Arts Project (FAP) as a specific artists' assistance program from 1935 to 1943. Previously unemployed artists in this program were paid to create artwork for tax-supported public buildings and spaces. This allowed thousands of American artists to earn a modest but consistent amount of money during the Depression. Noble Curry joined the WPA in 1938 as a ditch digger, but somehow the word spread that he was an artist and he then joined the other artists in the Federal Arts Project in the Cleveland area. In an interview printed in the Cleveland Plain Dealer on February 24, 1974, he was quoted as saying that he earned $28 dollars per week as an artist working for the WPA/FAP from 1938 to 1941.
Each state staffed and administered its own FAP. To learn more about Ohio's program and the artists working within it, please click on the link below to hear a very interesting radio interview and read a related article published on September 15, 2011 by WKSU Radio at Kent State University:
http://www.wksu.org/news/story/29394
(Thanks to Darcilla Olshavsky, one of Noble's great-granddaughters, for this link.)
Once completed, the artwork created by all the artists, including Noble's, became the property of the government. Sometimes the artists knew which cities their work was sent to, but not always. In Noble's case, some 80 works he created during his years of work in the program are unaccounted for. These artworks include paintings in watercolor and oil, and some fine art prints. Some eight of his artworks were sent to Washington, DC to be installed in public spaces. The family of Noble Curry would like to know the whereabouts of any of his FAP pieces, so if you are reading this and know of any of them, please email me (at top of right column). Any information would be most appreciated! Some of the work may be in private hands now, and some still on display in public buildings, still hanging on administrative office walls, or stored in closets.
Right: Abstract Men, Noble Wilbur Curry, oil, 1941
In 1939, Noble's painting style was becoming more abstract, which was uncommon among his Ohio peers. In the Plain Dealer article, he states, "I was doing abstracts, and a lot of Clevelanders weren't ready for that in the '30's." Perhaps the endorsement of his work that came with his participation in the Federal Art Project allowed him to flourish as a painter. His work became bold, confident in its brushstrokes, and rich in color and composition. Artists hired into the program were often those whose style of work was not particularly sellable in the '30's and '40's. Noble was in good company; other painters in the program included Thomas Hart Benton, Mark Tobey, Diego Rivera and Jackson Pollock.
By 1939, Noble and his family had moved into a home in North Olmsted, Ohio where he had space to paint. The Plain Dealer article also quotes, "Sure those were tough days, but we still had a lot of fun. We'd meet at each other's houses. I still keep in touch with old-timers like Stanley Cough, now in White Plains, NY, and Frank Fousek in St. Louis." Noble often expressed a desire to know where his FAP artwork ended up. To that end, we hope these articles provide awareness of his work and subsequent contacts with his family.
Left: Self-Portrait, Noble Wilbur Curry, oil, 1936
Right: Noble Wilbur Curry, Head of Man, oil, date to be confirmed
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