The Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project (WPA/FAP), part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal to stimulate the economy and create jobs during the Great Depression, employed thousands of artists between 1935 and 1943 to create artworks for public spaces. This groundbreaking democratic experiment celebrated and supported American art and artists by providing a source of income, enhancing public buildings, and enriching the lives of Americans in the throes of the Great Depression. The Art Commission reviewed hundreds of Federal Art Project commissions during this period, including murals, sculpture and mosaics. A significant portion of the WPA/FAP commissions in our collection were installed in public health and hospital facilities. There is a noticeable shift in theme and tone depending on the location of murals. Murals in children's wards often focused on nursery rhymes and fanciful themes, while those in nurses' recreation rooms were "relaxing" and focused on familial scenes. Murals in doctors' recreation rooms focused on the history and progress of medicine, while those in psychiatric wards sought to provide therapy for mental distress.

In the late 1930s, the WPA/FAP commissioned a series of murals for Harlem Hospital, located on the east side of Lenox Avenue between 136th Street and 137th Street. It was the first major United States government commission awarded to African American artists. While the WPA approved the artists' sketches, the hospital's superintendent and the commissioner of hospitals objected to four of the proposed murals on the grounds that they included too much "Negro" subject matter. In response, the Harlem Artists Guild, the Artists Union, and the hospital's first African American physician, Louis T. Wright, worked to support the artists and publicize the controversy. With this support, the artists prevailed and their murals were submitted to the Art Commission for review and approval.

In 1993, the two Harlem Hospital murals by Charles Alston were conserved through the Municipal Art Society's Adopt-A-Mural program. Starting in 2005, as part of the construction of the new Harlem Hospital Center, murals by Charles Alston, Alfred Crimi, Vertis Hayes and Georgette Seabrooke were removed from the old building and conserved. In 2012, they were reinstalled prominently in the center's Mural Pavilion, celebrating the hospital and Harlem's rich African American history and culture.