For The Millions

"Looking behind the scenes at the personalities and policies of such venerable institutions as the Federal Arts Project and the Museum of Modern Art, A. Joan Saab discerns a broad-based democratic modernism, inspired by and engaged with the social life of the period." "The idea of treating the artist as a "producing worker" and art as an "everyday part of living and working" was a novel one in 1935 and illustrated a broad shift in the social roles of both. Prior to the 1930s, art in America had resided principally in the domain of the cultural elite. The upheaval of the Depression era,…