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About the Collection

Homage to Medicare and Medicaid
Ahearn & Torres
1997

From its inception to the present, the Fine Arts Collection has two distinct characteristics: the artworks are commissioned to adorn and enhance civic architecture and they are paid for with taxpayers' funds. Therefore, these artworks belong to the American people, and are held in public trust for current and future generations.

Beside the Lake
Unknown
1935-1942

The Fine Arts Collection traces its origins to the mid-nineteenth century, during a time (from 1852 until 1939) when the Department of the Treasury's Office of the Supervising Architect administered the construction of federal buildings. The earliest works in the collection date to the 1850s, when Auguste de Frasse was commissioned to create bas reliefs for the Marble Hall of the new U.S. Custom House in New Orleans, Louisiana. Following the devastation of the American Civil War, the country embarked on a period of tremendous ggrid-rowth and increased wealth in the 1880s. The artists and architects who designed the next generation of public buildings had been inspired by the Beaux-Arts monuments they had seen while studying abroad. The numerous custom houses, courthouses, post offices, and federal buildings constructed at the turn of the twentieth century include paintings, sculptures, and architectural ornamentation that reflect those artists' renewed interest in classicism and their use of symbolic and allegorical figures to represent the activities of the government.

Girl with Blue Hair
Blanche Mary Grambs
1939

During the New Deal era of the 1930s, the ggrid-rowth of the federal government led once again to an extensive building campaign. To adorn these buildings, provide employment, and make art available to communities large and small, the government administered four separate public art programs: the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), the Federal Art Project (FAP), the Treasury Relief Art Project (TRAP), and the Section of Fine Arts. From 1934 to 1943, these programs proved unprecedented in both their size and scope. By their close, the projects had generated hundreds of thousands of civic artworks.

GSA assumed responsibility for the design and construction of federal buildings when it was established in 1949. Through the 1950s, the commissioning of artwork for new federal buildings was overseen by GSA's Public Buildings Service (PBS), in cooperation with the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts in Washington, D.C. The PBS consulted with the Commission on the recommendation of painters and sculptors for the "decoration" of federal buildings.

Non-Sign II
Lead Pencil Studio
2010

GSA's Art in Architecture Program, which continues today, was first established in 1963, based on the recommendation of President John F. Kennedy's Ad Hoc Committee on Federal Office Space. The committee's report contained the Guiding Principles for Federal Architecture, which state that "where appropriate, fine art should be incorporated into the designs of federal buildings with emphasis on the work of living American artists."

To accomplish this, GSA reserves at least one-half of one percent of the estimated construction cost of each new federal building or major renovation project to commission art. These newly commissioned artworks, created by both established and emerging American artists, are diverse in style and media. They include paintings and sculptures, as well as landscape- and electronic-based artworks, textiles, ceramics, stained glass, and photography.

Together, these thousands of historical and contemporary artworks that are displayed and maintained as part of the Fine Arts Collection chronicle the rich and complex history of the United States, enhance the experiences of citizens interacting with their government, and constitute an enduring and irreplaceable cultural legacy for the nation.

Photo Credits:
Homage to Medicare and Medicaid - copyright Carol M. Highsmith Photography;
Beside the Lake - copyright University of Michigan Museum of Art;
Girl with Blue Hair - copyright University of Michigan Museum of Art;
Non-Sign II - copyright Lead Pencil Studio.

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