Government

New Canaan WPA Art Work To Get Prominent Position in Renovated Town Hall

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Calling the WPA paintings that long adorned the meeting room at Town Hall “important artifacts for the town,” New Canaan’s highest elected official said the art work will grace an open, second-story hallway in the atrium of the newly renovated and expanded facility. A pair of 78-by-115-inch paintings by Walter Bradnee Kirby that imagined aerial views of New Canaan in 1834 and 1934, respectively, will be showcased under the skylight of the addition at Town Hall, according to First Selectman Rob Mallozzi. Following discussions among members of the Town Hall Building Committee, those paintings—two of 20 WPA paintings that belong to the town, according to an inventory on file with the New Canaan Department of Public Works—will sit in shadow box-like cases that protrude about four inches from the wall. Mallozzi said he would like to see a protective plexi-glass or something similar around them, as well. “They are going to be the focal point of our art work in our Town Hall just as the Historical Society focuses on certain artifacts for the town on their display, the Town Hall wants to focus the public’s attention on these paintings that were part of the WPA New Canaan effort, and that has always been vision: To showcase them.”

The paintings were originally commissioned by the Works Progress Administration, or WPA, a Depression-era government program developed under President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal initiative.

Government

Up to $50,000 Tagged for Testing at Town Hall Renovation Site

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Stopping by the Town Hall offices located temporarily in the same building as Walter Stewart’s, NewCanaanite.com was fortunate to get a few minutes with Registrar of Voters George Cody (D), who was kind enough to talk some about the large painting outside his own office. Cody had commented on a recent post in our “0684-Old” series about WPA murals hanging in New Canaan’s elementary schools. He mentioned that more paintings that had been on the walls at Town Hall (under renovation and scheduled for completion next spring—more on that below) likely will be re-installed when it reopens. The one hanging here, by artist T.R. Colletta, is an artistic representation of New Canaan’s Main Street, looking south from the bottom of Elm Street (in other words, toward the present-day New Canaan Library), Cody said. “You can see the man walking up the hill from Burtis Avenue and you can see where the restaurant [Barolo] is,” he said.

Now & Then

The WPA in New Canaan: ‘Fantasy and Beauty’

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The next time you visit South, East or West School, seek them out. They hang high and proud in each of our three public elementary schools. Their vibrant colors and scenes virtually burst from the walls with playful images that spark creativity and imagination for the hundreds of students passing by them every day, perhaps unaware of their rich history—not only in New Canaan, but in the United States as well. And had it not been for a few key New Canaanites, these treasures might have been lost forever. The paintings were originally commissioned by the Works Progress Administration, or WPA, a Depression-era government program developed under President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal initiative.