Connecticut WPA Art

Barbour, Harold (1889-1961)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 cartoo...

Banever, Gilbert (1913-2003)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 provi...

Angeletti, Nicholas (1900-1946)Nicholas Angeletti was born in Salandro, Italy on May 16, 1900. He came to Connecticut in 1901 and attended an evening high school for two years. He also worked in a factory and then sold meat. From 1919-1925 he studied art at the Connecticut Art Students League in Hartford, and he studied with Guy Wiggins, a prominent Lyme painter, for two summer...

All that is known about Louis Agostini is that he worked for the predecessor to the WPA Federal Arts Project known as the Public Works Arts Program. He completed at least six paintings, most of them in 1936. His paintings were allocated to the Laurel Heights Sanatorium, the State Teacher’s College in New Haven, and Milford High School in Milford, Connecticut. The work at the hi...

Ruby, Albert (1908-2004?)There is much we do not know about Albert Ruby’s life. He graduated from the Yale School of fine Arts in 1932 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and worked for the WPA in 1938 and 1939. He was assigned to landscape and figure painting. At the time he was living in Hamden, Connecticut.Sources: WPA Artist’s Work Card; WPA Federal Arts Project Newsletter, Novemb...

Katzenstein, Irving (1902-1973)Irving Katzenstein was born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1902 and remained a resident there for his entire life. He attended classes at the Hartford Art School and studied under Albertus E. Jones. He then attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts studying under Arthur B Carles. Even after Carles was dismissed from the Academy, Katzenstein and ...

Vetter, Cornelia Cowles (1881-1959)Like Edith Dale Monson, Cornelia Vetter was one of the most important female artists in the history of the Hartford art colony. She was born in the city in 1881. Her years of greatest prominence were in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Vetter graduated from Hartford High School in 1894 and attended the Pratt Institute in New York City beginning in 1898....

Thew, Robert Garrett (1892-1964)Robert Garrett Thew (aka R. Garrett Thew or Garrett Thew) was born in Sharon, Connecticut in 1892.  He was a painter and sculptor. He attended Syracuse University and the New York City Art Students League and studied under Edward Penfield, Walter Briggs, and John Carlson. Thew was associated with the J. Walter Thompson Advertising Agency and prod...

Thwing, Francis (1884-1967)Francis Thwing was born on the July 27, 1884. He painted three murals for the WPA Federal Arts Project at the Newington Home for Crippled Children, the Children’s Village, and Kinsella School in Hartford. Thwing died in May of 1967 in Maine. Sources: WPA Artist’s Work Card; Social Security and Death Index; “Mural to Hang at Newington Home for Crippled...