The WPA & the Golden Age · Reading & the Stage
W.P.A. concerts of unusual music
Federal Music Project, Works Progress Administration, 1936
What it is
A silkscreen poster for the Federal Music Project of the Works Progress Administration, printed in color on board and dating from the program's late-1930s run. It reduces a grand piano to a handful of confident flat shapes under the banner 'concerts of unusual music.'
Why it matters
The Federal Music Project put working musicians back on the payroll during the Depression and opened the concert hall to anyone who could walk in, free of charge. 'Unusual music' was the plain promise on the wall: this program would not just replay the standard repertoire. Its designer went unrecorded, one of the many anonymous hands in the WPA's poster division.
What to notice
Look at the piano itself, built from a few interlocking flat color shapes with no shading, exactly what a silkscreen stencil can hold without blurring its edges.
Cheap ink, plain words, and a promise that the strange music was for everyone.
Provenance
- School
- WPA — Federal Art Project (United States)
- Format
- Theater poster
- Poster published
- Federal Music Project, Works Progress Administration, 1936
- Source
- Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division · LCCN 98514344
Rights: CLEAR. Public domain — U.S. government program work (WPA Federal Art Project), any year. Gated by the poster’s own publication year. Cleared by registry on 2026-07-18.
Format
The full-resolution, color-managed file — restored honestly, yours to print and keep.
Sized to protect print quality — this scan supports sizes up to 18x24" cleanly.
Size
$29.00
