Skip to main content Smithsonian Institution

Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project Files

Catalog Data

Collection Creator:
Miller, Dorothy Canning, 1904-2003  Search this
Extent:
0.5 Linear feet (Box 20, OV 27)
Type:
Archival materials
Date:
1935-1979
Scope and Contents note:
Some of Holger Cahill's files relating to his work as director of the Federal Art Project (FAP) of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) remained with Dorothy Miller, including a series of essays written primarily by FAP artists which Cahill intended to publish, but had not before his death in 1960. This series contains both Cahill's files and Miller's files relating to subsequent FAP research efforts by others. There are two folders of correspondence and other material concerning Miller's work with art historian Francis O'Connor in collecting, organizing, and editing the FAP artist essays that Cahill had saved and which were ultimately published as Art for the Millions: Essays from the 1930s by Artists and Administrators of the Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project (Boston: New York Graphic Society, 1975). In the mid-1960s Miller began donating Cahill's FAP records to the Archives of American Art and scattered correspondence related to this disposition can be found here. Miller also worked with the Newark Museum in 1978-1979 on the exhibition Murals Without Walls which celebrated the recovery of two large panels of Arshile Gorky's "lost" murals painted for the Newark Airport in 1936-1937 under the FAP. There are files of Miller's correspondence with the museum about the project wherein she provided information about the Gorky murals from Cahill's FAP files. Additional files document inquiries relating to poster artists and referrals that Miller made to the Office of War Information Graphics Division following the closure of the FAP; an exhibition The Thirties: Reaction to a Crisis held at the Lowe Art Center in April 1974; and a folder of five copies of letters from Holger Cahill to artist Mitchell Siporin. There is also a folder containing copies of a text written by Miller for an exhibition she organized and was circulated by the Museum of Modern Art entitled The U.S. Government Art Projects: Some Distinguished Alumni.
Collection Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment.
Collection Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Collection Citation:
Dorothy C. Miller papers, 1853-2013, bulk 1920-1996. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Identifier:
AAA.milldoro, Series 9
See more items in:
Dorothy C. Miller papers
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw90ed259d5-5f3a-4961-8fdc-33e9b061c811
EDAN-URL:
ead_component:sova-aaa-milldoro-ref665