Lisa N. Peters
Balcomb Greene, "Untitled," 1937-39, oil on canvas, 91-1/2 x 139-1/4 inches, on extended loan to the Brooklyn Museum, New York by the New York City Housing Authority
A number of years ago, several murals from the mid-1930s were installed at the Brooklyn Museum. Their intriguing story soon came to light. It turns out that they were part of a group of works commissioned in 1936 by the New York Mural Division of the Works Progress Administration/Federal Art Project for public areas in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg Housing Project (designed by the Swiss-born architect William Lescaze and built in the then-modern International Style). The murals had been forgotten for many years. In some cases they had been covered with rubber cement and used as bulletin boards. In others, they had been locked away in storage rooms. Continue reading
