T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History Collection

INTERVIEWEE NAME: Caroline Durieux # 4700.0013

IDENTIFICATION: [1893-1989] Participant in the WPA Federal Art Project in Louisiana

INTERVIEWER: Margaret Fisher Dalrymple

DATE: March 31, 1975 FOCUS DATES: 1930s

ABSTRACT:

Tape 13

Becomes involved with the Louisiana Art Project; projects recorded and sent to the Index of American Design; selecting the artists; asks Mayor Maestri for money to support the project; Lawrence Jones, Black painter; Schoenberger designs mural for one of the branch libraries; John McCrady does a mural for a women's trade school; murals paid for by sponsors; administration of the projects; strange people on the project; WPA Art Project gives America a lift towards understanding its artists; project fulfills purpose of providing work for artists; artists' quality of work; artists lose confidence in the country; Depression doesn't affect the subject of the artists' works; Myron Michet, Communist artist; becomes involved with Lyle Saxon's project; Lyle Saxon, distinguished writer for Gumbo Ya Ya; goes on interviews with Hazel Breaux and Robert McKinney; McKinney and Durieux consult with the queen of Voodoos on shoplifting; Robert McKinney, only black man in the Writers' Project; McKinney and Durieux visit areas of spiritualists' meetings; blacks are now defensive of their heritage; explains the drawing of two African American heads in the New Orleans city guide; Lyle Saxon chooses Durieux because of her talent to catch the flavor of New Orleans; illustrates New Orleans cemeteries; artist develops own style; George Grosz, German satirist; develops point of view; Orozco and Diego Rivera, Mexican Indian artists; favors federal support for artists; believes WPA was successful and would help if there were another depression.

TAPE: T 13 CASSETTE TOTAL PLAYING TIME: 1 hour

# PAGES TRANSCRIPT: 28

RESTRICTIONS: copyright retained by the interviewee and her heirs