Artwork at Dayton Art Institute   Save
Ohio Guide Photographs
Description: Dated ca. 1930-1939, this photograph shows part of the exterior facade of the Dayton Art Institute, featuring a sculpture of a nude women atop a fountain and two arched niches in the stone staircase. Founded in a downtown mansion in 1919 as the Dayton Museum of Fine Arts, the museum moved to a newly designed Edward B. Green building in 1930. The Dayton Art Institute was modeled after the Casino in the gardens of the Villa Farnese at Caprarola, and the front hillside stairway after the Italian Renaissance garden stairs at the Villa d'Este, near Rome, Italy. This photograph is one of the many visual materials collected for use in the Ohio Guide. In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Works Progress Administration by executive order to create jobs for the large numbers of unemployed laborers, as well as artists, musicians, actors, and writers. The Federal Arts Program, a sector of the Works Progress Administration, included the Federal Writers’ Project, one of the primary goals of which was to complete the America Guide series, a series of guidebooks for each state which included state history, art, architecture, music, literature, and points of interest to the major cities and tours throughout the state. Work on the Ohio Guide began in 1935 with the publication of several pamphlets and brochures. The Reorganization Act of 1939 consolidated the Works Progress Administration and other agencies into the Federal Works Administration, and the Federal Writers’ Project became the Federal Writers’ Project in Ohio. The final product was published in 1940 and went through several editions. The Ohio Guide Collection consists of 4,769 photographs collected for use in Ohio Guide and other publications of the Federal Writers’ Project in Ohio from 1935-1939. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: SA1039AV_B12F09_042_001
Subjects: Dayton Art Institute; Arts--Ohio; Art museums--United States--History--20th century; Dayton (Ohio)--History--Pictorial works; Ohio--History--Pictorial works; Federal Writers' Project
Places: Dayton (Ohio); Montgomery County (Ohio)