During the New Deal, the Monterey Peninsula received $1,000,000 in funds from the Work Projects Administration to develop a regional Federal Art Project and to employ various artists to work on public art projects. Under the supervision of Amelie Kneass, the local Federal Art Project was headquartered at the former residence of writer Charles Warren Stoddard, Casa Verde, located at 303 Decatur Street in Monterey.
The photographer Sibyl Anikeyev (Anikeef) was a student of Edward Weston. In the 1920s, she married Vasia (Vasili) Anikeyev, an opera and Russian folk and liturgical singer. After the Anikeyevs returned from Germany and Italy, where Vasia studied voice, they moved to the Monterey Peninsula. In 1939, Sibyl Anikeyev joined the Federal Art Project on the Monterey Peninsula, becoming the project photographer. Traveling on the Peninsula and along the California coast, she photographed landscapes, fishermen, and historic adobe buildings. Several of her photographs were published in the book, Monterey Peninsula, compiled by the Work Projects Administration in Northern California (1941).
From the description of Photographs of Adobe Buildings in Monterey County 1940. (Monterey Public Library). WorldCat record id: 123081942
