Trump administration slashes division in charge of 26,000 U.S. artworks
Source: WAPO
"The fate of holdings dating to before the Civil War is uncertain after the dismissal of most workers in the General Services Administration’s fine arts and preservation units.
The future of a vast collection of public artwork is in doubt as the Trump administration plans to fire workers who preserve and maintain more than 26,000 pieces owned by the U.S. government, including paintings and sculptures by renowned artists, some dating to the 1850s.
Fine arts and historic preservation workers at the General Services Administration told The Washington Post that at least five regional offices were shuttered last week and that more than half of the division’s approximately three dozen staff members were abruptly put on leave pending their terminations. Workers expressed fear that the cuts will threaten a collection of precious art housed in federal buildings across the country, including Alexander Calder’s 1974 “Flamingo” at the John C. Kluczynski Federal Building in Chicago and Michael Lantz’s 1942 “Man Controlling Trade” outside the Federal Trade Commission building in D.C.
.... According to former staffers, the agency is looking to end its lease for a storage facility in Northern Virginia that holds hundreds of paintings and sculptures, including pieces sponsored by the Depression-era Works Progress Administration, a New Deal program responsible for some of the nation’s most iconic images. Federal government watchdogs over the years have sought to reclaim WPA artworks, some of which were sold on eBay. When the works were commissioned, artists were paid as much as $42 a week in 1934, or roughly $1,000 a week in today’s dollars, for finished pieces..."
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/art/2025/03/11/gsa-fine-arts-layoffs-trump/
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😑 😞
Part of our historical cultural history.
Add this to the list of nasty to egregious actions (or non-actions) by Resident drumphf, and Prezident Eloon.
The only difference is that instead of the art later being found in a railroad tunnel, they’ll be stumbled across in a side bathroom at Mar-a-sinkhole.
