The Whatcom Museum announces the opening of A Pull to the Pacific: West Coast Lithography of the New Deal Era, an exhibition curated by Western Washington University (WWU) students. Eighteen original lithographs from President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration (WPA), on loan to the Whatcom Museum from the U.S. General Services Administration’s Fine Arts Collection, will be on view June 6 – September 28, 2025.
At the height of the Great Depression in 1933, 25% of the U.S. workforce was unemployed, and the global economy was in turmoil. Roosevelt’s New Deal aimed to provide federally funded jobs to unemployed Americans — including to musicians, dancers, and visual artists through the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Arts Project (1935 – 1943). Participating artists of varied backgrounds and experiences were accepted and received $2 per day for their work (equal to about $50 today).
“The WPA was a testament to the importance of arts, both for American culture and the economy,” said Whatcom Museum Chief Curator Amy Chaloupka, who worked with WWU students to curate the exhibition. “Specifically, the project's Graphic Arts Division connected printmakers with professional artists to teach them how to make editioned prints of their works, which meant they could be distributed widely. This led to innovations in the field of printmaking that paved the way for its use as a fine-art medium.”
Lithography – the process of transferring a drawn image from a porous limestone surface onto paper – was commonly used in the WPA’s Federal Arts Project print workshops because it allowed imagery, especially images with populist messages, to be distributed easily to schools, libraries, and other civic spaces. Chaloupka explained that the prints on display in the exhibition represent works produced at West Coast print studios, primarily in San Francisco and Seattle, reflecting the cities and artists who lived there during the 1930s and ’40s.
A Pull to the Pacific was curated by WWU art education, art history, and art studio majors as part of the Art History 475 professional practices course taught by Professor Julia Sapin.
“For students, having an opportunity to work in a professional museum context is paradigm-shifting because it opens their eyes to the variety of work necessary to mount an exhibition and boosts their confidence about how they can contribute,” said Sapin. “And contribute they have. Their own labors have amplified those of the artists in the exhibition, signaling the continuing significance of the arts in molding American society, especially during dark times.”
Throughout the Spring 2025 quarter, students met with professionals in the museum field, including Cascadia Art Museum Curator David Martin, WWU Printmaking Professor and Department Chair Lisa Turner, and Whatcom Museum Chief Curator Amy Chaloupka. Students then selected and researched prints for the exhibition, wrote the wall text for each piece, and organized the gallery layout with image and artist connection points in mind.
“Working with the Whatcom Museum provided me with the opportunity to see the 'life cycle' of art in a new way, and it's an experience I'll take with me into my professional future and as a museum-goer,” said history and museum studies student Sydney Durst. Art studio major Max Murphy added, “A huge emphasis was put on how the public will interact with the art and the text we write about it. Learning how to make art and art history more engaging and approachable to new viewers has made me a better artist.”
The Federal Arts Project ultimately supported 1,114 printmakers across the United States, who created upwards of 11,300 different images and produced about 250,000 prints. As a result, lithography has played a unique role in the visual history of the United States, and the legacy of the WPA’s Graphic Arts Division is still felt today through ongoing artist workshops, residencies, and university studios.
About the Whatcom Museum
The Whatcom Museum was founded in 1941 and overlooks Washington State’s Bellingham Bay. Notable projects have included the 2019 retrospective exhibition WANTED: Ed Bereal for Disturbing the Peace, featured in The New York Times; the award-winning, co-curated exhibition Many Wests: Artists Shape an American Idea, which traveled to the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., in 2023; and Verdant: French Masterworks from the National Gallery of Art. Also on view are El velo exquisito / The Exquisite Veil: Works by Alfredo Arreguín and Not the Whole Picture, Garth Amundson & Pierre Gour. Opening this summer are Mary Ann Peters’ myself inside your story and Meander by Io Palmer. The Whatcom Museum is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.
The Whatcom Museum campus in downtown Bellingham includes three buildings: the Lightcatcher, Old City Hall, and Old Fire Station No. 1. For more information about exhibitions and admission, visit whatcommuseum.org.
