Bohemians on the Breadline - by Lauren Arrington (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

The extraordinary and unexamined history of a radical group of women artists funded by Roosevelt's New Deal, who challenged racism and inequality and created enduring works of public art.

Like millions of Americans in the Great Depression, artists Alice Neel, Augusta Savage, Georgette Seabrooke, Lenore Thomas Straus, Elizabeth Olds, and Pablita Velarde gratefully embraced employment under the Federal Arts Project. It was one of the most unique social experiments in U.S. history--mass public funding of art meant for the public. Murals were painted, sculptures cast, and art classes were taught, as these talented artists gave back to the communities they lived in. But these women were also making radical art that challenged racism, inequality, and capitalism, and despite pressure by bureaucrats to dictate the art they made, they succeeded. When the New Deal programs were dissolved at the end of the decade, much of the art that had been made was destroyed or forgotten. The surviving works were absorbed into the landscape of our everyday lives. Because it's always there, it's rarely seen. Situated in housing projects, playgrounds, and municipal buildings, this art is seldom understood as more than a cultural artifact. But these are labors of love by women artists who put themselves at risk.

In vivid, eloquent prose backed up by archival research, Lauren Arrington brings to life the intimate and emotional stories of these women artists--of mentorship and activism, sex and socialism, tortured love affairs and children left behind. Above all, what endures is the art, what Eleanor Roosevelt called "a golden harvest" that the country reaped during its barren years.

Review Quotes

"A moving, powerful and beautifully written account of a fascinating historical moment, through the eyes of a brilliant array of women artists whose works speaks as much to our time as their own."
--Francesca Wade, author of Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife

"An essential, history-shifting story of women artists working in the United States during the New Deal. Arrington's agile prose and deep archival research (No FBI file goes unturned) reveals the conflicting but necessary role of art in national crisis and personal identity--and feels freshly relevant today. Long after I'd finished reading, many of its details lingered like lanterns strung across the shadows of history."
--Prudence Peiffer, author of The Slip: The New York City Street That Changed American Art Forever

"Beautifully researched and conceived, Golden Harvest is a timely, compelling reminder of how the arts flourished and sustained a nation when championed by public leadership and investment."
--Natalie Dykstra, author of Chasing Beauty: The Life of Isabella Stewart Gardner

About the Author

LAUREN ARRINGTON earned her doctorate from Oxford University and has been awarded prestigious fellowships at Cambridge University, Boston College, Trinity College Dublin, the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas, and the New York Public Library. She was the recipient of both a National Endowment for the Humanities Award and the Robert & Ina Caro Award from Biographers International Organization. In addition to her scholarly publications, Lauren's writing has appeared in Literary Hub, Irish Times, and TLS. She divides her time between a small farmhouse in rural Ireland and her birthplace in northern Florida.