David and Art - A Federal Arts Commission, Then and Now

Last week we talked about a 1953 report by a US government agency called the Commission of Fine Arts. The CFA is supposed to have a big say in the creation of things like the nation’s memorials and monuments, as well as the construction or destruction of public buildings. Historical preservation is one of its mandates as well.

I’m teaching a class in the history of the presidency this semester and it just so happened in the last couple of weeks we were talking about the administrations of Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. That’s the era when the CFA began. It’s 115 years old this year.

When he wasn’t speaking softly and swinging his big stick, or trying to use the new Navy to intimidate rivals, Roosevelt was often thinking about art and culture. “There should be a national gallery of art established in the capital city of this country,” he announced in 1907. “This is important not merely to the artistic but to the material welfare of the country.”

By the end of his second term in office, Theodore Roosevelt believed the federal government had to get more involved in the nation’s art simply because there were too many good things the government could do for it to remain idle. In January 1909, he issued an executive order creating a federal Fine Arts Commission to advise and direct the artistic and architectural development of the nation’s capital.

When word of Roosevelt’s action reached Capitol Hill, Congress was indignant. Many representatives and senators opposed the move, not because they had any fundamental disagreement with the idea, but because this seemed to be just another typical Roosevelt encroachment on the rights and prerogatives of the legislative branch. Incoming President William Howard Taft agreed that the council needed congressional sanction, and shortly after his inaugural he abolished it. But he immediately encouraged Congress to create a replacement, which it quickly did. It’s first members included Famed architect Daniel H. Burnham, renowned painter Francis Millet, and sculptor Daniel Chester French who a few years later created the statue of Lincoln sitting in the Lincoln Memorial. Architect Cass Gilbert who designed the Woolworth Building in New York which was the tallest building in the world when it opened in 1913 was another member. From that point forward the Commission of Fine Arts enjoyed legislative sanction and functioned efficiently.

But these days it’s not listened to as much as it used to be. At the end of last month, the White House announced it had fired all six remaining members of the Commission. The Chair position was already vacant. At the same time, the entire East Wing of the White House was torn down. Theodore Roosevelt by the way, was president when the East Wing was built.

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