Connecticut WPA Art

Milici, Salvatore M. (1907-1982)Salvatore Milici was born on May 30, 1907, in New Haven, Connecticut where he attended public schools. Before working for the project he had worked as a carpenter, a landscape artist, an interior decorator, and a sign painter. He won the Beaux Arts Competition in 1928. In 1932 he graduated from the Yale Art School. He worked for the predecessor t...

Mimsey, A. Reid (?)In 1934 A. Reid Mimsey completed a mural for the Atwater Training School in New Haven, Connecticut. It was executed in egg tempera and titled His Book. Mimsey started under the direction of the FERA and the Public Works of Art Project. It is unknown if he was transferred to the WPA Federal Arts Project. The dates of Mimsey’s birth and death are unknown. ...

Monaghan, Theodore (1890-1984)Theodore Monaghan was born in Zurich, Switzerland on March 30, 1890. His parents were Irish. Monaghan was orphaned when both of his parents died in Hamburg, Germany. He was brought up in Germany, attending public schools in Hamburg. From a young age he could draw and model in clay. He began his formal art education with four years at the Hamburg Ar...

Keeler, Louis Bertrand Rolston (1882-?)Rolston Keeler was born November, 1882, in New York City. He studied at the National Academy of Design for five years and for one season at the Chase School. He moved to Connecticut in 1928. He was one of the most prolific painters for the Connecticut WPA Federal Arts Project, creating 276 watercolors of Connecticut landscapes, 33 pencil s...

Kellogg, Estelle (?)Little is known about Estelle Kellogg except that she exhibited art at the Darien Guild of the Seven Arts. She worked for the WPA’s predecessor, the Public Works of Art Project, and for the WPA Federal Arts Project, completing the mural Art Education of Children for the Rice School in Stamford, Connecticut. Her dates of birth and death are unknown. There is ...

Killam, Walter (“Walt”) Milton (1907-1979)Walt Killam was born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1907. His WPA biography stated that he “earned his way through High School by conducting a dance orchestra.” He attended the Rhode Island School of Design from 1924-1928. He told the WPA that “he has succeeded in art only by forgetting, through work, the credos that were thrust upon hi...

Kinney, Troy (1871-1938)Troy Kinney was an illustrator, painter, etcher, and print maker/graphic artist. He was born in Kansas City, Missouri on December 1, 1871. He lived in Chicago before attending the Yale School of Fine Arts, where he graduated in 1896. He also studied at the Chicago Art Institute. Kinney married Margaret West, who was also an artist, and they collaborated ...

Kelsey, Luman P. (1906-?)Luman P. Kelsey was born in Denver, Colorado in 1906. He studied art in high school and attended a private school. Prior to the Depression he was a portrait photographer. In 1931 he wed Dorothea Story and moved to North Canton, Connecticut. Totally self-taught, Kelsey started a ceramics studio and kiln of his own in 1934. Before working for the WPA Fede...

Korder, Walter O. R. (1891-1962)Walter Korder was born in Berlin, Germany in 1891. When he was eighteen months old his parents immigrated to the United States, settling in Hartford, Connecticut. He attended local schools and classes at the Hartford Art Society. He received one of four scholarships awarded in the U.S. to attend the Royal Academy in Munich, Germany. After graduat...

Kravitt, Samuel (1913-2000)Samuel Kravitt was born in New Haven, Connecticut in 1913. In 1929 he dropped out of high school intending to become a pilot but decided to pursue a career in photography after borrowing a World War I aerial camera. He opened his first portrait studio in 1932. Under the WPA Federal Arts Project he was one of four photographers. Ten of his photographs ...