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CETA Arts Legacy Project
The CETA Arts Legacy Project began as a small group of artists who had been
part of the Cultural Council Foundation CETA Artists Project in NYC in 1978-79.
In retrospect, we recognized the importance of CETA as a model for
government support of artist employment and for community service.
We also saw knowledge of the CETA Arts programs slipping from history.
From 2011 to 2019 we focused primarily on researching and gathering
documentation of the CCF Project and getting word out to the public
through a website, scholarly presentations and articles. Through
our research we gained a greater appreciation of the national scope
of CETA’s support of artist employment. By 2020, with the added
impetus of the great damage done to the cultural economy by the
Covid pandemic, we expanded our efforts to a national scope
and have now assembled a broad coalition.
In 2017, CETA Arts legacy efforts gained a partner in NYC’s
City Lore/Place Matters, which has lent staff, space and other resources
in support of the project and has acted as a kind of institutional home.
City Lore’s archivist, Molly Garfinkel, has been its primary liaison
to the legacy project. City Lore was joined by Art Alliance,
directed by Jodi Waynberg, to produce the exhibition
Art/Work,
shown at City Lore and Cuchifritos galleries during the winter of 2021/22.
In 2023 we gained an additional partner in Mary Okin, assistant director
of Living New Deal, an organization dedicated to the legacy of the
New Deal that now recognizes the influences of that program
in the 1930s had upon CETA in the 1970s.
Who We Are
CETA-related Exhibitions (selected)
ART/WORK upcoming; the James Gallery of the CUNY Graduate Center NYC
and then traveling to additional venues nationally, premiering fall 2026
CETA Arts in Philadelphia upcoming; Philadelphia City Hall Gallery, August 3 - September 25, 2026
Citizen Artist upcoming at the Delaware Art Museum, April 11 - September 5, 2026
New York Public Library - In July 2025, the Wallach Division’s photography collection acquired
100
vintage prints of photographs
of the CCF CETA Artists Project made in 1978 by two
members of its
Documentation Unit, George Malave and Blaise Tobia.
ART/WORK How the Government-Funded CETA Jobs Program Put Artists to Work 1973-1981,
City Lore and Cuchiritos Galleries, NYC, December 2021 - April 2022
CETA-related Media Appearances (selected)
The CETA Arts Revolution Part 1 • Part 2 - a two-part podcast on Change the Story/Change the World
in conversation with Bill Cleveland, Director of the Center for Study of Art and Community (05/25)
CETA: Forgotten Federally-Funded Artists webinar series
organized and hosted by Living New Deal (10/24)
Part 1: Reshaping the WPA for the 1970s • Part 2: The Artist Experience
Part 3: Impact on the Arts and Community
The Forgotten Federally Employed Artists
article: Hyperallergic (12/20)
The landmark 70s artist program that shaped American culture forever
article: i-D (01/22)
Artists say a forgotten Nixon-era jobs program could
radically alter federal arts funding
article: Philadelphia Inquirer (04/21)
Panels and Presentations (selected)
Forgotten Federal Art Legacies: The New Deal to CETA in San Francisco
A convening organized by The Living New Deal
at the California College for the Arts, San Francisco, March 2025
Program
Art History in Search of a Historian
Andrea Kirsh • Virginia Maksymowicz • Blaise Tobia
at the College Art Association conference in NYC, February 2023
Video available through the CETA Arts Legacy Archive
How an Almost-Forgotten Federal Program Kickstarted the Feminist Art Movement
The Women's Caucus for Art and City Lore Gallery
Virginia Maksymowicz (chair) • Jerri Allyn • Arlene Rakoncay • Senga Nengudi •Maren Hassinger
Ann Kalmbach • Nina Kuo via Zoom
(introduction by Molly Garfinkel), March 2022
Video via YouTube
The Forgotten Federal Artists: CETA and the CCF Artists Project
Christy Rupp • Ademola Olegbefola • Judd Tully • Blaise Tobia (chair)
at the College Art Association conference in NYC, February 2019
Artists, Institutions and Public Funding for the Arts: the Legacy of CETA
Tom Finkelpearl • Rochelle Slovin • Ted Berger • Steven C. Dubin • Howard Singerman (chair)
at Hunter College, CUNY, February 2019
Recent Policy Influenced by CETA (selected)
Creatives Rebuild NY was a three-year, $125 million project funded primarily by the Mellon Foundation
with both employment and basic income programs for artists in NY State. For two years, beginning
in mid-2022, the employment program provided full-time jobs to 300 artists. It was based closely on
the 1978 CCF CETA Artists Program (which it credited as a model).
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