Leon Bibel: Forgotten Artist of the New Deal

Leon Bibel was one of thousands of artists who made a living during the New Deal working for the Federal Art Project, a branch of the Works Progress Administration. Bibel’s life was defined by the Great Depression and by the New Deal. His work was shaped by that era’s commitment to social and economic justice and by its commitment to artistic expression as a way to respond to and combat urgent national problems. Bibel believed in art as a practice, as a forum for social commentary, and as a way of life. New Deal art was radical, as were many of the men and women who drove it forward artistically and intellectually. Thanks to the work of critics Barbara Melosh, Helen Langa, and Sharon Musher, we are familiar with the innovative and effective nature of 1930s art after years of neglect. Nevertheless, Bibel’s name remains curiously absent from these studies. In Leon Forgotten Artist of the New Deal, historian Richard Haw recounts the life of Leon Bibel from his birth in 1913, in Szczebrzeszyn, Poland to his death in New Jersey in 1995. Haw’s work focuses primarily on the 1930s, a time that Bibel split between San Francisco and New York, and his most significant and prolific artistic period. The book situates Bibel in the context of his times and within his artist milieu, exploring such important themes as American immigration, anti-fascism, social, economic, and racial injustice, public art, Jewish identity, New Deal policies and practices, and their influence on American culture.