Sarah Bane

During the Great Depression, many artists and arts organizations required federal aid through programs such as the Works Progress Administration to survive. My dissertation contributes to a growing literature that addresses the position of private arts organizations during this turbulent time. Print clubs were one type of these private institutions that remarkably thrived during the Great Depression, with new groups founded throughout the United States and many membership levels reaching all-time highs in the 1930s. My dissertation addresses this anomaly: why did regional print clubs flourish when other arts organizations required federal support? I suggest that these clubs are critical sites for understanding how regional constituencies expressed specific aesthetic, political, and social distinctions through the circulation of fine art. Investigating three case studies from across the United States, my dissertation presents a nuanced investigation of how local, national, and international concerns intersected in private arts organizations during the interwar period. Bringing together artists, collectors, and community members keen to develop their knowledge of art, I suggest that these print clubs were regional formations of what would ultimately become a thriving art market in the United States following World War II.