RICHARD HAW is a professor in the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. He is the author of The Brooklyn Bridge: A Cultural History, Art of the Brooklyn Bridge: A Visual History, and Engineering America: The Life and Times of John A. Roebling.

• Introduction: Leon Bibel, American Art, and the New Deal1    Beginning: Freedom and Tradition in a Polish Shtetl (1912–1926)2    Learning: Art and Diversity in San Francisco (1927–1935)            3    Arriving: An Artist in New York (1935–1936)4    Thriving: New York and the Federal Art Project (1936–1938)5    Departing: The End of New York (1938–1942)6    Living: An Artist and a Chicken Farmer in New Jersey (1942–1995)Acknowledgments    NotesIndexAbout the Author

"In this powerfully illustrated work, Haw has elegantly recovered both the life and the prolific and varied art of Polish Jewish immigrant Leon Bibel. Haw shows how the New Deal's art projects enabled Bibel and a generation of artists—especially art teachers—to experiment aesthetically and to portray the struggles of the times. Haw's account highlights both the obstacles inhibiting, and the factors encouraging, creative expression: the support of government, community, and friends." - Sharon Ann Musher (author of Democratic Art: The New Deal's Influence on American Culture) "This book inserts Bibel's biography into well-defined yet eminently readable historical accounts of some of the complex challenges facing American political and cultural identities from the 1920 to the 1970s. Haw has done a splendid job of bringing together the engaging and complex personal story of an American Jewish immigrant artist whose energy, spirit, and stylistic inventiveness will engage various kinds of readers." - Helen Langa (author of Radical Art: Printmaking and the Left in 1930s New York) "Leon Bibel moves beyond the artistic canon to offer an illuminating case study of the 'cultural front.' Bibel's art, compelling in the emotions it evokes that bespeak his times and observations, is perfectly complemented by the clarity and facility of Haw's writing." - Joshua Brown (executive director emeritus of the American Social History Project)