Future Events

Movies From the Great Depression Showing In Chicago
portoluz, a Chicago arts organization, is running the second year of WPA 2.0, a Brand New Deal in 2012. Many events are planned on the theme of applying lessons from the New Deal today. Visit the portoluz website for more information.

Listed below are movies showing in a series called “Hollywood During the Depression” and a documentary about three working women during the Depression.

Wild Boys Of the Road
William Wellman directed this 1933 movie about teenagers who leave home to look for work, hopping trains across the Midwest.
7:30 p.m. May 2 at Portage Theater, 4050 North Milwaukee Avenue

You and Me
A department store owner puts his principles to work and hires ex-convicts, leading to a romance between two of the employees. Directed by Fritz Lang in 1938.
7:30 p.m. June 20 at Portage Theater, 4050 North Milwaukee Avenue

After Tomorrow
Director Frank Borzage shot this movie about a couple's frustrated aspirations in 1932, at the bottom of the Depression.
7:30 p.m. June 27 at Portage Theater, 4050 North Milwaukee Avenue

Christmas In July
A man enters a contest for a new slogan for a coffee company, and his co-workers play a trick to convince him he's won a large prize. Directed by Preston Sturges, released in 1940.
7:30 p.m. July 11 at Portage Theater, 4050 North Milwaukee Avenue

La Belle Equipe
Five factory workers win a lottery and put all the proceeds toward a workers' open-air dance hall. This forgotten classic of France's Popular Front was directed by Julien Duvivier in 1936.
7:30 p.m. July 25 at Portage Theater, 4050 North Milwaukee Avenue

Hallelujah I'm a Bum
Al Jolson stars as a New York City tramp who falls in love with the mayor's girlfriend. With music by Rogers and Hart. Directed by Lewis Milestone, released in 1933.
7:30 p.m. Aug. 8 at Portage Theater, 4050 North Milwaukee Avenue

This Day and Age
Cecil B. DeMille directed this 1933 film about high school students who are temporarily granted law-enforcement authority and start a vigilante campaign against the city's gangsters.
7:30 p.m. Aug. 22 at Portage Theater, 4050 North Milwaukee Avenue

Union Maids
This documentary was nominated for a Best Documentary Oscar in 1976. It tells the story of the 1930s labor union through the eyes of three working women who lived through it. Directed by Jim Klein, Julia Reichart and Miles Mogulescu. There will also be a screening of “Everyday People,” an unfinished short documentary by postal worker JoAnn Elam.
7 p.m. Oct. 12 at Nightingale, 1084 North Milwaukee

 

Heather Becker Leading Tours of Chicago WPA Murals
Heather Becker, CEO of The Chicago Conservation Center and author of the book “Art for the People: The Rediscovery and Preservation of Progressive and WPA-Era Murals in the Chicago Public Schools, 1904-1943”, will lead tours of three WPA mural sites in Chicago Oct. 2 and 9. The groups will be small, so space will be limited. Pre-registration is required at the portoluz website. Tours will cost $40 per person, including a box lunch.

The tours are sponsored by portoluz as part of its WPA 2.0 series. Becker is a co-founder of the Midwest Chapter of the NNDPA.

 

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Past Events

What Artists Will Speak For Rural America?
Dan Brinkmeier, farmer and rural artist, will contrast artists' responses to the 1930s with today in a lecture at 6 p.m. Oct. 11, 2011.

During the 1930s, the hardships of the economic depression, political upheaval, labor conflict and social change were challenged head-on by Regionalist painters and through other activist forms of artistic expression, which fostered the WPA and a national public art movement. Visual art was used as an instrument of attack, instruction, and inspiration, and was based in our country's rural heritage and traditions. In today's America, we also face similar challenges to our way of life; and yet, where are the visual artists who will depict themes that not only celebrate the strengths that define our country, both urban and rural, but also serve to show the reality of how people live in the "forgotten country" of rural America and the social change that has taken place there? Who will give us a new "people's art?"

Brinkmeier is an artist, educator and farmer who still works with his family on a small cattle farm in Northwestern Illinois. He will speak at LillStreet Art Center Gallery, 4801 North Ravenswood, Chicago.

 

Lecture on African American Printmakers During the New Deal
Printmaker Thom Lucas will give a talk from 2–4 p.m. Oct. 1, 2011, titled The African American Contribution to Printmaking Innovation and Design During the WPA period Saturday. He will be speaking at the Southside Community Art Center, 3831 South Michigan Ave., Chicago.

Thom Lucas is Director of Printmaking at the Lillstreet Art Center and is founder and Master Printer at Hummingbird Press L.A.C Editions: Kerry Marshall, Richard Hunt, Preston Jackson, Barbara Jones-Hogu and Candida Alverez. Lucas' own artworks are included in various private and public collections. He exhibits nationally and abroad.

The South Side Community Art Center opened in Chicago in 1940 with support from the WPA's Federal Art Project in Illinois. It was the first black art museum in the United States and has been an important center for the development of Chicago's African American artists. The center was awarded Chicago Landmark status in 1994.

 

Saving Chicago's WPA Murals
Heather Becker, CEO of The Chicago Conservation Center and author of the book “Art for the People: The Rediscovery and Preservation of Progressive and WPA-Era Murals in the Chicago Public Schools, 1904-1943”, will give a Powerpoint lecture about the rediscovery of the murals and how a grassroots effort grew to become the largest mural preservation project in American history. Becker is the Chief Executive Officer of The Chicago Conservation Center and a co-founder of the Midwest Chapter of the NNDPA.

The lecture will be from 6–7:30 p.m. Sept. 13, 2011 at The Conservation Center, 730 N. Franklin #701, Chicago. Admission is $5, and advance registration is required. Contact portoluz@gmail.com to register.

 

Economist to Deliver Annual Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Distinguished Lecture
Dean Baker will speak at 6 p.m. Sept. 12 at Roosevelt University. He is the Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research and has written several books, including “Taking Economics Seriously,” “False Profits: Recovering From the Bubble Economy,” and “The Benefits of Full Employment” (with Jared Bernstein). Baker appears frequently on TV and radio programs, and his blog, Beat the Press, features commentary on economic reporting.

The lecture will be in Congress Room 2nd Floor on the Roosevelt University campus at 430 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago.

 

History Class Studying Murals Close-Up
Board member Dallan C. Wordekemper reports that a history class from Columbia College Chicago that is studying the New Deal is visiting Parma Conservation in Chicago March 16, 2011, to learn about the New Deal Post Office murals and to view the murals there now. The Atlantic City, mural has been restored, and restoration is in progress on the Herrin and Geneva murals.

 

Concert Features African-American WPA Composer
A concert at Harris Theater in Chicago on Feb. 17, 2011, will showcase two works by WPA composer Florence Price. The premier of her first symphony was the first performance major orchestra performance of a composition by an African-American woman in the United States. This symphony will be on the program, as well as her Concerto in One Movement for Piano. The original score of the concerto was lost after it premiered in 1934. The score has been reconstructed from piano reductions.

The concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. and will also include works by two contemporary African-American composers: Olly W. Wilson and Mary D. Watkins. The New Black Music Repertory Ensemble of The Center for Black Music Research at Columbia College Chicago will be performing.

Florence B. Price (1887–1953) was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, but lived and worked in Chicago from 1924 to 1953. Her first symphony, which is considered among the main concert musical achievements of the Harlem Renaissance, was premiered by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1933 and was the first piece by a black woman to be performed by a major symphony orchestra in the United States. Her Concerto in One Movement for piano was premiered in Chicago's Orchestra Hall in 1934. This will be the world premiere performance of the reconstructed score for the concerto.

 

 

 

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