Suburban Apartments

Lloyd Goff painted Suburban Apartments for the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), a New Deal program created by the federal government to give financial and moral support to American artists during the Great Depression. Artists were encouraged to go out and paint "the American Scene," meaning they should record the look and feel of the country. Suburban Apartments shows apartment buildings in the Washington Heights section of New York City. We do not know much about Goff’s motivation for this painting. However, it may be that he romanticized the depiction of a quiet, safe neighborhood, which appears here protected in a blanket of snow to produce a more pleasing impression.