Anton Refregier

Refregier on scaffold at work on mural at WPA Building of the 1939 N.Y. World's Fair. Photographed for the Works Progress Administration. Anton Refregier (March 20, 1905 – October 10, 1979) was a painter and muralist active in Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project commissions, and in teaching art. He was a Russian immigrant to the United States.

Among his best-known works is his mural series The History of San Francisco, located in the Rincon Center in downtown San Francisco, California. It depicts the city's history across twenty seven panels that he painted from 1940 to 1948.

Life and early career Refregier was born in Moscow and emigrated to the United States in 1920. After working various odd jobs in New York City, he earned a scholarship to the Rhode Island School of Design in 1921. After finishing school, Refregier moved back to New York in 1925. To earn a living, Refregier worked for interior decorators, creating replicas of François Boucher and Jean-Honoré Fragonard paintings. He continued his creative development, and traveled to Munich in 1927. While there he studied under painter Hans Hofmann, who was creating abstract expressionism paintings.

Refregier returned to New York state during the late 1920s, and lived in the Mount Airy artists' colony in Croton-on-Hudson.

Federal Art Project — Works Progress Administration He struggled as a muralist until the federal government began the Federal Art Project in 1935, within the Works Progress Administration—WPA (renamed in 1939 the "Works Projects Administration"), that created sponsorship of artists. When asked about the program Refregier said that it was "by the wisdom of one of the greatest Presidents we ever had, Roosevelt, it's common knowledge the WPA, a relief program, was established [because] it was necessary to protect the skills of the American people." Refregier began to gain notoriety in his field, and so was given the opportunity to choose between two assignments for his first WPA—Federal Art Project. He was given the choice of painting a mural in a courthouse, or in the children's ward of a hospital. Refregier chose the latter, because did not want the pressure inherent in designing public artwork for a courthouse. He was assigned to the children's ward mural project at Green Point Hospital, in Brooklyn. The project took a little over a year to complete, and involved five other contributing artists.

The mural also depicted: the California Gold Rush; the 1860s building by Union Pacific of the western First transcontinental railroad; the disastrous 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire; and further into the twentieth century with the city's Second World War contributions, and culminating in the 1945 signing of the United Nations Charter in the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House. In 1968, he signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.

Refregier died in 1979 while in Moscow. He was working on a mural for a medical center in his home city. The same year, his Rincon Mural was placed under the protection of the National Register of Historic Places.