The 75th annual Salem Art Fair runs this weekend at Bush’s Pasture Park. The first Art Fairs in Salem were celebrated at Willson Park, near the Capitol building.
The fair in 1952 featured artists from the Salem Weavers Guild and potters who demonstrated how to make ceramics. It was interesting to me to discover that David Duniway was identified as one of the artists who would be featuring his art at the fair. David Duniway was the first archivist for the State of Oregon, and he was active in the field of historic preservation in Salem. It turns out he was also a key leader at the Salem Art Association, and an artist as well.
My research into this history of Salem Art Fairs uncovered something surprising. Before the Salem Art Fairs coordinated by the Salem Art Association, there was an annual Salem Art Fair held in November from the late 1930s through the early 1940s. It was held at the Salem Federal Art Center. This art center was funded by the federal government through a Works Progress Administration program called the Federal Art Project.
The Federal Art Project was a New Deal program established in 1935 which funded the visual arts in the United States. It was one of five projects sponsored by the Works Progress Administration and was the largest of the New Deal Art projects. The Federal Art Project established over 100 community art centers throughout the country in order to sustain the work of artists and craft workers through the Great Depression. The project employed more than 5,000 artists at its peak in 1936.
In 1937, Salem was one of the communities selected and offered an Art Center.
In the Sept. 15, 1937, Oregon Statesman, an editorial ran titled: “Opportunity is offered Salem for establishment of a local community art center.”
The editorial read, “Salem must keep pace in cultural lines with its progress in industry and other forms of activity. We do pretty well for schools, for recreation, fairly well for libraries and music, very little for art although there is a lively local interest in art. The project is sound and full of merit.”
Just a few months later in December 1937, the Statesman provided an update stating that a group of 22 Salem civic leaders established a committee to support creating the federal art center in Salem. The committee met with D.S. Defenbacher, the federal regional advisor managing the WPA federal art program, along with Dr. Burt Brown Barker, the state art projects chairman.
The Salem Art Center would be funded with $8,000 WPA funds annually. The federal government proposed that establishment of Salem’s art center would include class, workshop and gallery rooms; and a program of classes in fine and applied arts for adults and children. Lectures and exhibitions would be directed by a staff paid for by the federal government and provided free of charge to the Salem community, but Salem needed to provide a building to host the center.
On March 23, 1938, the Statesman reported that the Salem School District approved the use of five rooms in the old senior high school building, located on Marion Street between High and Church streets for use by the Salem Art Center. Not long after, Defenbacher announced the Salem Art Center would open in late spring or early summer of 1938 on the north side of the first floor of the old high school building.
Val Clear, from Washington D.C., was appointed as the Salem Art Center director, and a search for two local Oregon artists to be instructors at the center was underway. Defenbacher, the regional director, emphasized that the Salem Art Center would be a local institution, and a local advisory board would be needed to establish the specific program and policies.
The Salem Art Center opened in June 1938, and was comprised of two large galleries and three classrooms for art studio use. The art center offered school activities including a Guild School for those who wished to go into an advanced study of art, as well as general art classes for everyone. Two live-in Oregon artists, Louis Bunce and Eric Lamade, were hired as teachers and conducted classes in life drawing, painting, woodcrafts, and sculpture. All of the classes, lectures and workshops were free to the public.
The first exhibit in the center consisted of a representative group of paintings and sculptures by living American artists curated by Joseph Danyah, the regional director of the federal art project in San Francisco. The center thrived through the late 1930s and early 1940s. For example, on Nov. 7, 1940, Capitol Journal had an article called “Special events numerous at the Salem Art Center”. Events that year were held in honor of “American Art Week,” celebrated nationally as part of the WPA program. That week, 289 paintings were exhibited, as well as 50 sculptures along with many other examples of woodcrafts and life drawings.
Classes at the center also included instruction from artists from both the Grand Ronde and Siletz tribes in basketry and weaving. The following year, the Aug. 14, 1941, Capital Journal reported of a visit to Salem from two members of the Franciscan order, and teachers at the government Indian school at St. Stevens Indian Mission in Wyoming who had heard about these classes and wanted to learn weaving, so they could in turn teach it to their students. They were able to learn how to weave and made several blankets while they were here in Salem. The sisters marveled at the many free activities being offered at the Salem Art Center and wished that that had access to an art center like Salem’s in their own community in Wyoming.
The most significant piece of art produced in Salem from this project was the mural called “The Builders of Salem” completed by artist Andrew McDuffieVincent in 1942 for the lobby of the Salem post office—which is now the Oregon Executive Building – and is located at 155 Cottage St. N.E.
By 1943, federal support for the Salem Art Center was discontinued, but interest from the community was still strong. In 1942 the Salem Art Center moved to a building at Pringle Park, but soon had to relocate. The Salem Weaver’s Guild continued their work, moving their classes to Willamette University. The other artists associated with the Salem Art Center initially moved their classes over to Busick’s Market at Court Street.
There were no art fairs held for a few years, until the formation of the Salem Art Association. The first president was Elizabeth Lord, and committee members included David Duniway, Stuart Johnson and E.W. Ecklin, who decided to move the Art Fair to August – first at Willson Park. After the Salem Art Association moved into the Bush House and Barn, they were held at Bush’s Pasture Park.
Nationwide, the artists through the Federal Art Project produced 2,566 murals, over 100,000 easel paintings, about 17,700 sculptures, nearly 300,000 fine prints and about 22,000 plates for the Index of American Design along with innumerable posters and objects of craft. Also a part of WPA’s diversified activities were the Federal Writers’ Project, and the Federal Theatre Project. The federal government is in the process of trying to recover and catalog work from this period.
More research needs to be done to identify and locate the art created in Salem during this period, but you can see photos of some of the art and craft work created in Oregon if you go to the Multnomah County library gallery here.
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Kimberli Fitzgerald is the city of Salem's archeologist and historic preservation officer. She is a regular contributor to Salem Reporter's local history column.
