Promoting Womens’ Art in the WPA with Kay Wells

Women played crucial roles in the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration as artists, researchers, and administrators. This lecture focuses on the women who worked for the Index of American Design, a WPA project that celebrated early American handicrafts. Women artists developed innovative techniques for documenting those handicrafts, researched their historical significance, and organized popular exhibitions to showcase them to the public. They promoted early American textiles in particular as women’s art, and in the process they transformed public perception of the history of American art and women’s work.

Ruth Grotenrath, Yuki, ca. 1970; Casein on paper; Photo by Avery Pelekoudas; Photo courtesy of The Warehouse Art Museum

Ruth Grotenrath, Yuki, ca. 1970; Casein on paper; Photo by Avery Pelekoudas; Photo courtesy of The Warehouse Art Museum

Professor Kay Wells lectures at the Warehouse Museum on Thursday, February 23, 2023 from 4:00 – 5:00 PM in conjunction with the exhibition: Rediscovering Ruth Grotenrath: All Things Belong To This Earth. Exhibition runs January 13 to March 31, 2023.

Article on exhibition in Milwaukee Magazine: Warehouse Art Museum’s New Exhibition Highlights an Artist Born 111 Years Ago

More information on lecture and exhibition at the Warehouse Museum

Image promoting Ruth Grotenrath at the Warehouse Museum