WPA Art Inventory Project

John Backstrom was born in Meriden, Connecticut and educated in public schools in Meriden and Wallingford. At the age of 14, he showed a talent for art that an art teacher noticed. That same year he sold his first painting. Backstrom continued to paint and developed his skill in landscape painting. During the Second World War he served in the Army. On his return he studied art under Will H. Chandler in Washington, D.C. then, under John Conlon in New Haven. For two and a half years Backstrom attended the Hartford Art School and studied under Heindrik Mayer. In 1938, under the WPA project, he painted 13 easels. He was also skilled in painting murals and later in life painted many rooms in private houses in Meriden and Wallingford. Backstrom painted portraits of Babe Ruth and Marilyn Monroe. In the last years of his life his eyesight grew dimmer, but he continued to paint. Bckstrom died in 1983 in a nursing home in Wallingford.

Sources: WPA Artist’s Work Card; Articles from the Meriden Record Journalwith no dates provided by the Record Journal and William Phibbs, Backstrom’s nephew; Social Security Death Index.

Works of Art Listed in CT Archives’ database from John Backstrom:

Gilbert Banever was born in New Haven, Connecticut on June 8, 1913. He attended the city’s public schools, developed an interest in art, and won prizes and awards. He received a BACHELOR OF FINE ARTS from Yale in 1934. He supported himself by painting in the Yale University Library. That year Banever won the much sought after Prix de Rome which provided money for him to live, at no cost, at the American Academy of Rome and to receive $1,500 a year for two years. He continued to win awards for his paintings after returning to New Haven. At the time Banever worked for the WPA Federal Arts Project he was single. From 1938-1943 he served as the Director of the Memphis Academy of Art, as a designer for General Electric from 1943-1945, and he worked for MGM from 1945-1947. He completed four paintings for the WPA. One was allocated to the Norwich State Hospital and another to the City of New Haven. Banever died on December 10, 2003, most likely in California.

Sources: WPA Biography; WPA Artist’s Work Card; Who Was Who in American Art (1985), pp. 31-32; AskART; Social Security Death Index; “Winners of Prix de Rome Awards Chosen in Painting and Sculpture,”New York Times, May 2, 1934; “Prix de Rome,” Time Magazine, May 7, 1934.

Images available in Flickr

Works of Art Listed in CT Archives’ database from Gilbert Banever:

Harold Barbour was born in Newtonville, Massachusetts in 1889. He attended the Art Students League in New York City and worked in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1929 Barbour and his wife moved to Higganum, Connecticut and lived there until his death. He was active in the Central Connecticut Art Center in Marlborough. In addition to illustrations and cartoons, Barbour wrote poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. He was active in the Brainerd Memorial Library, serving as chair of the Board of Trustees, and  was a member of the Haddam Historical Society. The Haddam Historical Society now owns the [Harold] Barbour Collection of cartoons and illustrations, his fiction, non-fiction, poetry, pencil sketches, photographs, and wood block prints. Barbour worked for the Public Works of Art Project, a program funded prior to the WPA Federal Arts Project. For the WPA, he painted 54 easel paintings and two murals, one depicting a scene from the Portland Quarry and the other, a shipyard in Portland. Both are in the Portland High School. A series of easel paintings on tobacco farming were allocated to the Portland Board of Education. A series of ten easel paintings was done for the Children’s Village in Hartford, Connecticut now known as the Village for Families and Children. Barbour died in 1961.

Sources: WPA Artist’s Work Card; The Harold Barbour Collection, Haddam Historical Society;” “Mural Panels by Harold Barbour of Higganum for Portland High School Auditorium,” Hartford Courant, May 29, 1938; “Exhibition,”Hartford Courant, December 11, 1968; “Harold Barbour Re-elected Head of Library,” Hartford Courant, June 2, 1959.

Images available in Flickr

Works of Art Listed in CT Archives’ database from Harold Barbour:

Milton Rockwell Bellin was born in New Haven, Connecticut on June 6, 1913. He attended the Yale School of Fine Arts and received his BACHELOR OF FINE ARTS in 1936. Bellin assisted James Daugherty with murals for the Stamford Housing Project and acknowledged Daugherty’s influence on his style. Bellin painted seven murals at Central Connecticut State University for the WPA Federal Arts Project, and he completed 62 easel paintings, the majority of which were in water color. His works were allocated to the Nathan Hale School in New Britain, the Mystic Oral School, Central Connecticut State University, Norwich and Fairfield State Hospitals, and the Board of Education in Milford. Bellin later served as the Principal of the High School of Art and Design in New York City. He died there on October 7, 1997.

Sources: WPA Artist’s Work Card; WPA Biography; AskART; E-Mail of Mamed to Mark Jones with attachments, 7/30/08; Obituary, New York Times, November 5, 1997; Standalone Picture, Hartford Courant, April 17, 1938; Neal Broverman, “At CCSU, Milton Bellin’s Depression Era Art,” Hartford Courant, 3/23/2000.

Images available in Flickr

Works of Art Listed in CT Archives’ database from Milton Bellin:

Daisy Maud Bellis was born in Waltham, Massachusetts on February 16, 1887. She studied art at the Massachusetts School of Art, the University of Vermont, Breckenridge School of Painting, and in schools and studios in Montreal and Paris. In 1936 she was elected as a Fellow at the Royal Society of Arts in London. Bellis taught art at Salem College, Winston Salem, North Carolina and at McDonald College, McGill University Montreal, Canada. She painted approximately 80 easel paintings for the WPA Federal Arts Project. Her works were allocated to the Laurel Heights, Undercliff, and Cedarcrest Sanatoria, the Connecticut State Farm for Women at Niantic, the Middlesex County Temporary Home, and Fairfield Hills Hospital. Bellis also led art instruction courses sponsored by the WPA. Her date of death is unknown.

Sources: WPA Artist’s Work Card; WPA Biography; Who Was Who in American Art (1985), p. 45; Women Artists in America; Edward Alden Jewell, “Musings Way Down east,” New York Times, August 27, 1933.

Images available in Flickr

Works of Art Listed in CT Archives’ database from Daisy Bellis:

Edward Benoit worked with George West lettering and painting signs for East Rock and West Rock Parks using larcoloid, an acrylic latex gloss enamel applied to primed metal surfaces. The signs were directional placed along nature trails; textual describing the life cycle, behavior, and habitats of birds, insects, mammals, and vegetation and explaining natural processed like the creation of boulders during the Ice Age; and representational providing paintings of animals and plants described. Benoit completed 177 signs for East Rock Park. His WPA Artist’s Work Card states that he also did “General Work in the Bldg.” from 1937-1938. Nothing else is known about him.

 Source:  WPA Artist’s Work Card.

Images available in Flickr

Works of Art Listed in CT Archives’ database from Edward Benoit:

Leslie Benson was born on March 15, 1885, in Mahone, Nova Scotia. He attended the School of Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Erie Pape School, and the Fenway School. He drew illustrations for magazines in the 1920’s and 1930’s and then became a book illustrator. Later in his life, Benson went into the field of religious art. He was a member of the Salmagundi Club, the Artist’s Guild, and the Society of Illustrators. For the WPA Federal Arts Project, Benson turned out 55 easel paintings, many of which were allocated to the Mystic Oral School, the Soldiers’ Home in Rocky Hill, Cedarcrest, Laurel Heights, and Undercliff Sanatoria, Center School in West Hartford, Long Lane Farm, and the Uncas on Thames Hospital. Benson died in September 1972 in a hospital in Tryon, North Carolina.

Sources: WPA Artist’s Work Card; WPA Biography; AskART; Who Was Who in American Art (1985), p. 48; Fielding’s Dictionary of American Painters, pp. 64-65.

Images available in Flickr

Works of Art Listed in CT Archives’ database from Leslie Benson:

All that is known about this artist is that she worked for the FAP in 1940 and was then residing at the YWCA in New Haven. She produced one unallocated easel entitled, “Gloxinias.” She is also listed as working on an untitled mural at the Lawrence School in Hartford, but there are no starting and ending dates.

Source: WPA Artist’s Work Card

Ralph Boyer was born in Camden, New Jersey on July 23, 1879. He attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts where James Daugherty was a fellow student, and where Boyer met his future wife, Rebecca Hunt, who was also a student. He won the Cresson Scholarship for travel throughout Europe. When he returned Boyer took up portrait painting and in World War I, showing skills as a leader, served as head of the Baltimore branch of the Emergency Fleet Corporation’s marine camouflage unit where he supervised the application of camouflage patterns to US merchant ships. In 1920 he married, and for a time the couple lived in New York City. They moved to Westport, Connecticut three years later. Boyer was elected a Fellow at the Pennsylvania Academy. By the Great Depression, he was known for his etchings, murals, and stained glass art as well as for his book and magazine illustrations. He worked for the Public Works of Art Project, a predecessor to the WPA Federal Arts Project. For the WPA, Boyer completed 180 works, most of them etchings, many of which were duplicates of the same subjects. He also did five plasticine sculptures. Not done under the WPA was a commission with Kerr Eby to paint murals for the Bridgeport Brass Company as an artist-in-industry. The company was so impressed with his portraits of workers and managers alike and murals of office and assembly line scenes that they gave Boyer a pension. He died in 1952.

Sources: WPA Artist’s Work Card; WPA Biography; AskART; Who Was Who in American Art (1985), p. 70; Dorothy and John Tarrant, A Community of Artists; Westport-Weston, 1900-1985(1985), pp. 63-64;  “Camoupedia,” Roy R. Behrens.

Images available in Flickr

Works of Art Listed in CT Archives’ database from Ralph Boyer:

George Thomas Brewster was a sculptor known for his portraits and war memorials. He was born in Kingston, MA on February 24, 1862 to Altheus Brewster and Mary S. Cushman. He could trace his lineage back to William Brewster, leader of the Mayflower expedition. We know nothing about his childhood or early education. From 1877-1881, he attended the Massachusetts State Normal Art School in Boston. He next traveled to Europe and studied with Augustine Dumont and Atonin Mercie at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, in Paris from 1881-1884. At the Ecole des Beaux-Ats he won first prize, a distinction received by no other American student.  He returned to the U. S. in 1884 and in the following year, married Addie Lina Margueritte De Courtney who was born in Passy near Paris. Brewster was the founder of the modeling course at the Art Students’ League in New York in 1886, and he was instructor in art at the Rhode Island School of Design from 1892-1893. After his divorce from Addie Linna, he married Lina Totten, daughter of Irving Totten of Tottenville, Staten Island. The couple had three children, Thomas, Eleanor and George. Brewster received commissions for public memorial sculptures, so many, in fact, that the web sites providing this information are listed below. Among more famous commissions were the State Soldiers’ and Sailors’ monument at Indianapolis, IN, the Soldiers’ monument in Malden, MA, the Cuyahoga County Soldiers’ and Sailors’ monument in Cleveland, OH, and the “Independent Man” atop the Rhode Island State House in Providence.  He sculpted 23 statues for the Vicksburg National Military Park. He lived in Tottenville, New York. His last known address was in Cos Cobb, Connecticut in 1933. He died in 1943. He worked from October 1936 to July 1937 for the Federal Art Project in Connecticut. He completed five sculptures in Plastina and as part of the FAP, was an instructor in modeling at Burdick Jr. High School and at Stamford Community College.

Sources: WPA Artist’s Work Card; Ask/Art; Who’s Who in American Art (1985), p. 76; Glenn B. Opitz, ed., Mantle Fielding’s Dictionary of American painters, Sculptors & Engravers Second Edition (1987), pp. 100-101; George Brewster (Sculpture),” Wikipedia [This source should be consulted skeptically.] at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Brewster_(sculptor) ;  [Plaque of Colonel Alpheus Skidmore Harris, Commander of the 43^rd Georgia at the Vicksburg National Military Park], 43rd /Georgia Images – People; “George T. Brewster,” Vicksburg National Military Park at http://www.nps.gov/vick/historyculture/george-t-brewster.htm ; “Pleasant Plains Plaza,” New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, at http://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/R002/highlights/12270 ; “Augustine Saint-Gaudens, 1904 by George T. Brewster,” Saint- Gaudens National Historic Site; Thomas R. Evans, “The Independent Man,”; “Pleasant Plains Memorial,” Permanent Art and Monuments, New York City Department of Parks & Recreation at http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_your_park/monuments/monument_info.php?monld=1187 ; “History of the Victory Sculpture,” Indiana Department of Administration at https://www.in.gov/idoa/state-property-and-facilities/public-works/victory-repairrestoration/history-of-the-victory-sculpture/ ; Leslie E. Owen.

Works of Art Listed in CT Archives’ database from George Brewster:

Samuel Brown was born in 1903. He worked for the Public Works of Art Project and began work for the WPA Federal Arts Project in November of 1935. He completed a total of 36 easel works and one mural. Brown was adept at painting portraits, completing a number of them for the Westport Library in 1936. His other work was allocated to Redding Hill School, Fairfield State Hospital, Connecticut State Farm for Women, and the Mystic Oral School. Brown’s date of birth is unknown. He died in 1983 at the age of 80.

Sources: WPA Artist’s Work Card; WPA Biography; AskART.

Images available in Flickr

Works of Art Listed in CT Archives’ database from Samuel Brown:

John Burdick was born in Norwich, Connecticut in 1872. He completed high school at the Norwich Free Academy, going on to study at the Norwich Art School, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Art Students League in New York, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, and in France and Italy. For 17 years Burdick worked for noted New York sculptor J. Massey Rhind. He assisted Rhind with the modeling of an equestrian statue of George Washington, completed a statue of John Wanamaker in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, sculpted three statues of former presidents of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, and created preliminary models for statues on the outside of the New Haven Superior Court House. His style of sculpture was described by WPA Federal Arts Project officials as “academic and competent.”

Burdick worked for the WPA from 1935 to 1940, completing ten original works during that time. He created a series of Seasonal Plaques on Athletics that was popular. He made five sets of these plaster plaques for various parks and schools throughout the state. Several of his sculptures were exhibited at the WPA’s Federal Arts Project’s Tercentenary Exhibition in New Haven, Connecticut. Duplicates of his works were allocated to the New Haven Department of Public Works, Middlesex County Temporary Home, the Hartford Board of Park Commissioners, the West Hartford Board of Education, the West Hartford School Department, the Boardman Trade School, Beecher School, Clinton Avenue School, Dante School, Eaton School, Nathan Hale School, Ivy Street  School, Woodward School, Meriden School for Boys, Hamden High School, a school in Derby, a school in East Hartford, the New Haven Board of Education, the Bethany Public Library, the National Youth Administration, Meriden School for Boys, and Monroe Elementary School. Burdick’s date of death is unknown.

Sources: WPA Artist’s Work Card; WPA Biography.

Images available in Flickr

Works of Art Listed in CT Archives’ database from John Burdick:

According to the Connecticut Federal Arts Project’s newsletter for July 1939, Benjamin Burgoyne was a descendant of the British officer, General John Burgoyne, who was defeated by the patriots at the Battle of Saratoga during the Revolution. Benjamin Burgoyne worked for the WPA from 1938-1940 using his carpentry skills to manufacture frames for over 1,138 easel paintings. In 1939 the newsletter states that Burgoyne was “now in charge” of the “framing department.” It describes him as “an expert cabinet maker and framer.” He also cut glass, prepared matting, and painted and shellacked the frames. Nothing else is known about him.

Sources:  WPA Artist’s Work Card; WPA Federal Arts Project Newsletter, July 1939.

There is little known about Frank Butler except that he worked for the WPA from 1936-1937 while living on Shore Beach in Branford, Connecticut. He painted several signs with images of insects, animals, and plants known to be at East Rock Park. He used the medium larcoloid, an acrylic latex gloss enamel applied to primed metal surfaces. For information about the park, go to the City of New Haven Parks and Rec.

Source: WPA Artist’s Work Card.

Works of Art Listed in CT Archives’ database from Frank Butler: