Art Collection

Among New Deal New York City public school murals, the most outstanding example by a female artist is Lucienne Bloch’s The Evolution of Music, painted in a former high school music room. Bloch was one of the few WPA/FAP artists who had prior training painting murals, and she was well suited to her assignment at George Washington High School.  She had already successfully completed one WPA/FAP fresco for the Women’s House of Detention at Riker’s Island.  In addition to an apprenticeship with Mexican painter and muralist Diego Rivera, she had extensive art training, beginning with four years in Paris, where she studied with sculptor Antoine Bourdelle and the cubist painter André Lhote. She supplemented this more conventional training by spending a year in Germany, where she studied industrial design. As a muralist, she was most influenced by Rivera’s conceptual approach and his commitment to the artist’s social responsibility; her interest in promoting harmony among different ethnic groups influenced her approach to both of the commissions she painted in New York City.