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in the schools
Adlai E. Stevenson High School C.E.S. 4, Crotona School Davidson Day Care Center DeWitt Clinton High School Early Childhood Center #2 Early Childhood Center # 3 Early Childhood Center #4 Evander Childs High School Intermediate School 206 Jane Addams High School Middle School 254 Public School 3 Public School 7, The Kingsbridge
School Public School 11, Highbridge School Public School 15 Public School 20 Public School 23 Washington
Avenue/East 182nd Street and Fordham Rd. Public School 34 Grote
and Prospect Streets Public School 36, Union Port School Public School 37 Public School 72 Public School 83 Public School 209 Public School 279 Public School 340
Theodore Roosevelt High School Walton High School |
Public art in the schools has added beauty and imagination to children's daily learning environment since the inception of formal programs at the turn of the century. Today, the Board of Education's art program through the Department of Cultural Affair's Percent for Art is the largest effort in New York City since the WPA commissioned artists to create art in the schools in the 1930s. More than half of New York City's Percent for Arts projects are located in public school buildings providing opportunities for hundreds of artists to collaborate with schools and to create art for and with the children of New York City.
In 1901, when the Board of Education was consolidated into a
single entity, a formal policy of mandating the installation
of permanent artwork into the architectural setting of new school
construction projects was instituted. In 1905, the noted American
muralist, Charles Yardley Turner, was commissioned to create
murals celebrating the development of the Erie Canal for the
auditorium of the new DeWitt Clinton High School, then located
in Manhattan. DeWitt Clinton is now located in the Bronx at Mosholu
Parkway and Paul Avenue.
Funding permanent artworks in New York City schools became more
and more popular. Proponents included the Society of Beaux Arts
Architects, the National Society of Mural Painters and the Municipal
Art Society. Public art in the schools remained limited to murals,
stained glass and bas reliefs evoking local and national history,
literature and literacy, but after World War I, in the 1920s,
it also included the commemoration of fallen students.
The New Deal art programs began in 1932 and were followed by
the Public Works of Art Project in 1934 and the Works Project
Administration (WPA) in 1935. The theme of many of these works
was the American experience and showed a growing awareness and
affirmation of ethnic diversity. WPA artists created murals that
related to the institution that would house it. After World War
II, most artists were no longer funded by the federal government
and those who were commissioned for school projects leaned towards
simple ideas of education using semi-abstract mosaics (rather
than painted murals).
In the 1950s and 60s, exterior sculpture became an important
feature of school commissions. Major 20th century artists were
commissioned such as Hans Hoffman who designed an abstract mural
featuring printers' symbols for the High School of Graphic Communication
Arts, Manhattan; and Ben Shahn who created a mural, Science
and the Humanities, which explored the theme of technology
versus humanism in the nuclear age. New themes became prevalent
including the space age, and the Civil Rights movement commemorated
by William Tarr's 1973 monument to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
located at the school that is named for him.
In 1982 the Percent for Art legislation was passed, followed by the New
York City School Construction Authority in 1989. Today's themes still
include science, technology, history, music, literacy, and multi-culturalism,
as seen in the work of Bill and Mary Buchen's Sound Playground,
P.S. 23; Candida Alvarez' What Do You See? stained glass windows
and Andrea Arroyo's Harmony I and Harmony II, I.S. 206.
