April 24 through August 2, 2009
Pfundt Gallery

Sponsored by Mary Lou and Andrew Abruzzese, The Pineville Tavern

In 1935, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt established the Works Progress Administration (WPA) as part of his New Deal program to put millions of unemployed Americans back to work. The WPA funded hundreds of murals and thousands of original posters through the Federal Art Project. This division employed more than five thousand artists in various art projects throughout the country; by 1938, there were poster divisions in at least eighteen states, including Pennsylvania. This exhibition surveyed some of the finest poster work done in Pennsylvania, and was drawn from the collection of Bucks County resident Laurence Miller, who is the owner/director of the Laurence Miller Gallery, one of New York's most prestigious photography galleries. Miller's unique and growing collection includes posters that celebrate Pennsylvania history, industry, and wildlife, in a range of styles from naïve to modernist.

Image: Robert Muchley, Work with Care, 1937. H. 25 x W. 19 inches. Relief printing on paper. Published by the WPA Federal Art project, Pennsylvania. Printed at the Graphics Arts Workshop, Philadelphia. Collection of Laurence Miller.