Art for the People: Carl W. Peters and the Rochester WPA Murals

Between 1935 and 1943 the government-funded Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) sought to keep artists throughout the country working by creating projects that would benefit the public. In Rochester, the Memorial Art Gallery s director, Gertrude Herdle Moore, administered the WPA art program, while Isabel Herdle, her sister and the Gallery s curator, was on the program s committee. In 1937, Rochester s WPA art project was called the most interesting and effective outside of New York City by the regional director of the Federal Art Project. Rochester s model program hosted and administered by the Memorial Art Gallery funded several mural groups by the artist Carl W. Peters. This is the catalog for the exhibition of the same name at the Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, October 18, 2015 January 3, 2016.