Oil Refinery--Fort Worth, Texas

Pattie Richardson East painted Oil Refinery at a time when Americans turned to industry as their only hope to break out of the Great Depression. The large oil refinery in this image, with its full silos and active smokestacks, is encompassing. The stark landscape hints at years of active use. In the early part of the twentieth century this was a common scene in the Texas landscape. East created this painting while working for the government-sponsored Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), which paid artists to create works for public display. The PWAP was one of numerous federal aid programs created under President Roosevelt's New Deal. The painting once hung in a Fort Worth high school near the artist's home and was exhibited at the Corcoran Gallery of Art's 1934 exhibition in Washington, D.C., on PWAP artists.