United States post office murals are notable examples of New Deal art produced during the years 1934–1943. They were commissioned through a competitive process by the

United States Department of the Treasury The Department of the Treasury (USDT) is the national treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States, where it serves as an executive department. The department oversees the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and ...

. Some 1,400 murals were created for federal post office buildings in more than 1,300 U.S. cities. Murals still extant are the subject of efforts by the U.S. Postal Service to preserve and protect them. In 2019, the USPS issued a sheet of 10 Forever stamps commemorating the murals.

History

As one of the projects in the New Deal during the Great Depression in the United States, the

Public Works of Art Project The Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) was a New Deal program designed to employ artists that operated from 1933 to 1934. The program was headed by Edward Bruce, under the United States Treasury Department with funding from the Civil Works Admin ...

(1933–1934) was developed to bring artist workers back into the job market and assure the American public that better financial times were on the way. In 1933, nearly $145 million in

public funds Government spending or expenditure includes all government consumption, investment, and transfer payments. In national income accounting, the acquisition by governments of goods and services for current use, to directly satisfy the individual o ...

was appropriated for the construction of federal buildings, such as courthouses,

school A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes comp ...

libraries A library is a collection of Document, materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or electronic media, digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a ...

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional ser ...

s and other public structures, nationwide. Under the direction of the Public Works of Art Project, the agency oversaw the production of 15,660 works of art by 3,750 artists. These included 700 murals on public display. With the ending of the Public Works of Art Project in the summer of 1934, it was decided that the success of the program should be extended by founding the

Section of Painting and Sculpture The Treasury Section of Painting and Sculpture was a New Deal art project established on October 16, 1934, and administered by the Procurement Division of the United States Department of the Treasury. Commonly known as the Section, it was rena ...

(renamed the Section of Fine Arts in 1938) under the U.S. Treasury Department, through Treasury Secretary Morgenthau's executive order of October 14, 1934. The Section of Painting and Sculpture was initiated to commission 1,400 murals in federal post offices buildings in more than 1,300 cities across America. The Section focused on reaching as many American citizens as possible. Since the local post office seemed to be the most frequented government building by the public, the Section requested that the

mural A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' is a Spani ...

s, approximately

oil painting Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of ...

s on canvas, be placed on the walls of the newly constructed post offices exclusively. It was recommended that 1% of the money budgeted for each post office be set aside for the creation of the murals. The

Treasury Relief Art Project The Treasury Relief Art Project (TRAP) was a New Deal arts program that commissioned visual artists to provide artistic decoration for existing Federal buildings during the Great Depression in the United States. A project of the United States ...

(1935–1938), which provided artistic decoration for existing Federal buildings, produced a smaller number of post office murals. TRAP was established with funds from the

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...

. The Section supervised the creative output of TRAP, and selected a master artist for each project. Assistants were then chosen by the artist from the rolls of the WPA

Federal Art Project The Federal Art Project (1935–1943) was a New Deal program to fund the visual arts in the United States. Under national director Holger Cahill, it was one of five Federal Project Number One projects sponsored by the Works Progress Administrati ...

. The Section and the Treasury Relief Art Project were overseen by

Edward Bruce Edward Bruce, Earl of Carrick ( Norman French: ; mga, Edubard a Briuis; Modern Scottish Gaelic: gd, Eideard or ; – 14 October 1318), was a younger brother of Robert the Bruce, King of Scots. He supported his brother in the 1306–1314 st ...

, who had directed the Public Works of Art Project. They were commission-driven public work programs that employed artists to beautify American government buildings, strictly on the basis of quality. This contrasts with the work-relief mission of the

(1935–1943) of the

, the largest of the New Deal art projects. So great was its scope and cultural impact that the term "WPA" is often mistakenly used to describe all New Deal art, including the U.S. post office murals. " New Deal artwork" is a more accurate term to describe the works of art created under the federal art programs of that period. The murals are the subject of efforts by the U.S. Postal Service to preserve and protect them. This is particularly important and problematical as some of them have disappeared or deteriorated. Some are installed in buildings that are worth far less than the artwork.

Process

Whereas the Public Works of Art Project paid artists hourly wages, the Section of Fine Arts program awarded contracts to artists based on works entered in both regional and national

competition Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, indiv ...

s. For this purpose, the country was divided into 16 regions. Artists submitted sketches anonymously to a committee of their peers for judging. The committees, composed of art critics, fellow artists and

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

s, selected the finest works. These were then sent, along with the artists' names in sealed envelopes, to the Section of Fine Arts for ultimate selection. This anonymity was to ensure that all competing artists had an equal opportunity of winning a commission. However, many local painters felt they were being kept out of the process, with the majority of contracts going to the better known artists. Artists were asked to paint in an "American scene" style, depicting ordinary citizens in a realistic manner. Abstract art, modern art,

social realism Social realism is the term used for work produced by painters, printmakers, photographers, writers and filmmakers that aims to draw attention to the real socio-political conditions of the working class as a means to critique the power structure ...

, and allegory were discouraged. Artists were also encouraged to produce works that would be appropriate to the communities where they were to be located and to avoid controversial subjects. Projects were closely scrutinized by the Section for style and content, and artists were paid only after each stage in the creative process was approved.

Controversies

The selection of out-of-state artists sometimes caused controversy, such as stereotypes of rural people being portrayed merely as hicks and hayseeds and not having the murals express their cultural values and

work ethic Work ethic is a belief that work and diligence have a moral benefit and an inherent ability, virtue or value to strengthen character and individual abilities. It is a set of values centered on importance of work and manifested by determination o ...

s. Many residents of small towns, most notably in the Southern states, resented the portrayal of rural lifestyles by artists who had never visited the areas where their artwork would be displayed. The controversy was of particularly acute in

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the O ...

, where 19 post offices received murals, with two post offices, one in Berryville, Carroll County and another in

Monticello Monticello ( ) was the primary plantation of Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, who began designing Monticello after inheriting land from his father at age 26. Located just outside Charlottesville, V ...

, Drew County, receiving

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable ...

. For seven decades following the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

, Arkansas had been perceived as the epitome of poverty and

illiteracy Literacy in its broadest sense describes "particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing" with the purpose of understanding or expressing thoughts or ideas in Writing, written form in some specific context of use. In other wo ...

by the rest of the nation. Many Arkansans had dealt with hardship and tribulation on a daily basis and the coming of the Depression had not made life easier. Although the sketches of such renowned artists as Thomas Hart Benton and Joseph P. Vorst were based on actual events and people encountered during their travels across the state, they sometimes focused on the worst aspects of life in these rural towns. This was not the legacy that Arkansans wished to leave their children and grandchildren. They wanted the murals to give hope to the younger generation in overcoming adversity, and provide inspiration for a brighter future with better things to come. In some instances, artists were asked to submit multiple drawings before being accepted by the community. When approval was given by the local residents on the artists’ final sketches, work on the murals proceeded, much to the satisfaction of all those involved.

Notable artists

* Ida Abelman * Kenneth Miller Adams * Dewey Albinson * Lee Allen *

Edmund Archer (artist) Edmund Archer (1904–1986) was an American artist best known for his portraits of African Americans. He was born in Richmond, Virginia, to parents who were both culturally and socially prominent in that city. Having taken an early interest i ...

Paul Theodore Arlt Paul Theodore Arlt (March 15, 1914, New York City - September 20, 2005, Rye, New York) was an American painter. Arlt graduated from Colgate University Colgate University is a private liberal arts college in Hamilton, New York. The college wa ...

Victor Arnautoff Victor Mikhail Arnautoff (born Uspenovka, Taurida Governorate, Russian Empire, November 11, 1896 – died Leningrad, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union, March 22, 1979) was a Russian-American painter and professor of art. He worked in San Francisco and ...

* Ernest Hamlin Baker * Belle Baranceanu *

Edith Barry Edith Cleaves Barry (1884–1969) was an American sculptor, painter, illustrator and designer born in Boston Massachusetts. She studied at the Art Students League in New York City and with Frank DuMond and Richard E. Miller. Barry was the founder ...

Gifford Beal Gifford Beal (January 24, 1879 – February 5, 1956) was an American painter, watercolorist, printmaker and muralist. Early life Born in New York City, Gifford Beal was the youngest son in a family of six surviving children. His oldest brother R ...

Rainey Bennett Rainey Bennett (June 14, 1907 – July 26, 1998) was an American artist, illustrator and muralist. His works have been displayed in major museum art collections. Work The art collections of Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern ...

* Lester W. Bentley * Oscar E. Berninghaus *

Theresa Bernstein Theresa Ferber Bernstein-Meyerowitz (March 1, 1890 – February 13, 2002) was an American artist and writer born in Kraków, in what is now Poland, and raised in Philadelphia. She received her art training in Philadelphia and New York City. Over ...

* Auriel Bessemer * Edward Biberman *

George Biddle George Biddle (January 24, 1885 – November 6, 1973) was an American painter, muralist and lithographer, best known for his social realism and combat art. A childhood friend of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, he played a major role in establi ...

* Henry Billings *

Julien Binford Julien Binford (December 25, 1908 – September 12, 1997) was an American painter. He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and then in France. Settling in Powhatan County, Virginia, he was known for his paintings of the rural population of ...

* Emil Bisttram * Arnold Blanch * Lucile Blanch *

Lucienne Bloch Lucienne Bloch (January 5, 1909 – March 13, 1999) was a Switzerland-born American artist. She was best known for her murals and for her association with the Mexican artist Diego Rivera, for whom she produced the only existing photographs ...

* Acee Blue Eagle * Peter Blume * Ernest L. Blumenschein *

Aaron Bohrod Aaron Bohrod (21 November 1907 – 3 April 1992) was an American artist best known for his trompe-l'œil still-life paintings. Education Bohrod was born in Chicago in 1907, the son of an emigree Bessarabian-Jewish grocer. Bohrod studied at ...

Louis Bouche Louis may refer to: * Louis (coin) * Louis (given name), origin and several individuals with this name * Louis (surname) * Louis (singer), Serbian singer * HMS ''Louis'', two ships of the Royal Navy See also Derived or associated terms * Lewis ( ...

* Ray Boynton *

Edgar Britton Edgar Britton (1901-1982) was an American painter, muralist and sculptor born in Kearney, Nebraska. He moved to Chicago where he studied and worked with Edgar Miller. There he began painting murals, many as WPA projects. For reasons of his ...

* Manuel Bromberg * Alexander Brook *

Conrad Buff Conrad Buff IV (born July 8, 1948) is an American film editor with more than 25 film credits since 1985. Buff is known for winning an Academy Award for Best Film Editing and an ACE Eddie Award for ''Titanic'' (1997); the awards were shared with hi ...

* Byron Burford *

Paul Cadmus Paul Cadmus (December 17, 1904 – December 12, 1999) was an American artist widely known for his egg tempera paintings of gritty social interactions in urban settings. He also produced many highly finished drawings of single nude male figures ...

Kenneth Callahan Kenneth Callahan (1905–1986) was an American painter and muralist who served as a catalyst for Northwest artists in the mid-20th century through his own painting, his work as assistant director and curator at the Seattle Art Museum, and his wr ...

* Clarence Holbrook Carter * Daniel Celentano *

Jean Charlot Louis Henri Jean Charlot (February 8, 1898 – March 20, 1979) was a French-born American painter and illustrator, active mainly in Mexico and the United States. Life Charlot was born in Paris. His father, Henri, owned an import-export business ...

Minna Citron Minna Wright Citron (October 15, 1896 – December 21, 1991) was an American painter and printmaker. Her early prints focus on the role of women, sometimes in a satirical manner, in a style known as urban realism. Early life and education ...

* Frederick Conway *

Howard Cook Howard Norton Cook (1901–1980) was an American artist, particularly known for his wood engravingsBecker, p.56. and murals. Cook spent much of the 1920s in Europe and returned to live in Taos, New Mexico. Cook first came to Taos, New Mexico in ...

Dean Cornwell Dean may refer to: People * Dean (given name) * Dean (surname), a surname of Anglo-Saxon English origin * Dean (South Korean singer), a stage name for singer Kwon Hyuk * Dean Delannoit, a Belgian singer most known by the mononym Dean Titles * ...

* John Edward Costigan * Arthur Covey * Gustaf Dalstrom * James Daugherty * Horace Day * Boris Deutsch *

Maynard Dixon Maynard Dixon (January 24, 1875 – November 11, 1946) was an American artist. He was known for his paintings, and his body of work focused on the American West. Dixon is considered one of the finest artists having dedicated most of their art o ...

* Margaret Dobson *

Stevan Dohanos Stevan Dohanos (May 18, 1907 – July 4, 1994) was an American artist and illustrator of the social realism school, best known for his ''Saturday Evening Post'' covers, and responsible for several of the ''Don't Talk'' set of World War II propagan ...

Olin Dows Stephen Olin Dows (August 14, 1904 – June 6, 1981) was a United States Army artist who served in the European Theater of Operations during World War II. Early life Dows was born in 1904, at Irvington-on-Hudson, New York. He was the only so ...

* Ethel Edwards * Stephen Etnier *

Philip Evergood Philip Howard Francis Dixon Evergood (born Howard Blashki; 1901–1973) was an American painter, etcher, lithographer, sculptor, illustrator and writer. He was particularly active during the Depression and World War II era. Life Philip Evergoo ...

* William Dean Fausett * Paul Faulkner *

Denman Fink Denman Fink (1880–1956) was an American artist and magazine illustrator. Works He worked with Phineas P. Paist and Walter De Garmo on the Douglas Entrance (1924) in Coral Gables, Florida, a property listed on the National Register of His ...

* John Kelly Fitzpatrick * Joseph Fleck *

Seymour Fogel Seymour Fogel (August 24, 1911 – December 4, 1984) was an American artist whose artistic output included social realist art early in the century, abstract art and expressionist art at mid-century, and transcendental art late in the century ...

Helen Katharine Forbes Helen Katharine Forbes (February 3, 1891 – May 27, 1945) was a Californian artist and arts educator specializing in etching, murals and painting. She is best known for western landscapes, portrait paintings, and her murals with the Treasury Sect ...

* Frances Foy * Jared French * Arnold Friedman *

Lee Gatch Harry Lee Gatch (September 10, 1902 – November 10, 1968), was a twentieth-century American artist known for his lyrical abstractions and his ability to find "a fresh approach" to painting the figure and nature "through interwoven patterns of ...

* Robert Franklin Gates * Arthur Getz * Paul L. Gill * Lloyd Lozes Goff *

Anne Goldthwaite Anne Goldthwaite (June 28, 1869 – January 29, 1944) was an American painter and printmaker and an advocate of women's rights and equal rights. Goldthwaite studied art in New York City. She then moved to Paris where she studied modern art, includ ...

* Xavier Gonzalez * Bertram Goodman *

Adolph Gottlieb Adolph Gottlieb (March 14, 1903 – March 4, 1974) was an American abstract expressionist painter, sculptor and printmaker. Early life and education Adolph Gottlieb, one of the "first generation" of Abstract Expressionists, was born in New York ...

Sante Graziani Sante Graziani (March 11, 1920 – March 15, 2005) was an American artist and art educator. He was known for his murals, which adorned many public buildings. Education Graziani was born in Cleveland, Ohio, to parents who had immigrated from Tus ...

* Gordon Grant * Grace Greenwood *

Marion Greenwood Marion Greenwood (April 6, 1909 – August 20, 1970) was an American social realist artist who became popular starting in the 1920s and became renowned in both the United States and Mexico. She is most well known for her murals, but she also pra ...

* Davenport Griffen * William Gropper *

Philip Guston Philip Guston (born Phillip Goldstein, June 27, 1913 – June 7, 1980), was a Canadian American painter, printmaker, muralist and draftsman. Early in his five decade career, muralist David Siquieros described him as one of "the most promising ...

* Robert Gwathmey * Richard Haines * Sally Haley *

Edith Hamlin Edith Ann Hamlin (June 23, 1902 – February 18, 1992) was an American landscape and portrait painter, and muralist. She is known for her social realism murals created while working with the Public Works of Art Project, Federal Art Project and th ...

George Matthews Harding George Matthews Harding (1882–1959) was an American painter, author-illustrator, and a muralist. He served as an official war artist during World War I and World War II. Life and career George Matthews Harding was born in Philadelphia. At ...

* Charles Russell Hardman * George Albert Harris * Abraham Harriton * Ernest Martin Hennings * Charles Trumbo Henry * Natalie Smith Henry * Victor Higgins * George Snow Hill * Stefan Hirsch * Alexandre Hogue * Milton Horn * Victoria Hutson Huntley * Peter Hurd *

Dahlov Ipcar Dahlov Ipcar (née Zorach; November 12, 1917 – February 10, 2017) was an American painter, illustrator and author. She was best known for her colorful, kaleidoscopic-styled paintings featuring animals – primarily in either farm or wild settin ...

* Reva Jackman * Mitchell Jamieson *

Edwin Boyd Johnson Edwin Boyd Johnson (November 4, 1904 – 1968) was an American painter, designer, muralist and photographer. Edwin Boyd Johnson was born on November 4, 1904, in Watertown, Tennessee,. Not long thereafter, the family moved to Nashville, Tenne ...

J. Theodore Johnson J. Theodore Johnson (November 7, 1902 – 1963) was an American artist and muralist. He was born in Oregon, Illinois, in 1902 and studied at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1921 to 1925. He became an artist and instructor in life drawing at the i ...

Allen Jones Allen Jones may refer to: *Allen Jones (Continental Congress) (1739–1798), Continental Congress delegate *Allen Jones (artist) (born 1937), British pop artist *Allen Jones (record producer) (1940–1987), American record producer * A.J. Styles (A ...

* Joe Jones * Sheffield Kagy *

Joseph Kaplan Joseph Kaplan (September 8, 1902 – October 3, 1991) was a Hungarian-born American physicist. ttp://articles.baltimoresun.com/1991-10-13/news/1991286049_1_perry-ellis-museum-of-art-guggenheim-museum Baltimore Sun:Joseph Kaplan, 89, who was profess ...

* Charles Kassler *

Rockwell Kent Rockwell Kent (June 21, 1882 – March 13, 1971) was an American painter, printmaker, illustrator, writer, sailor, adventurer and voyager. Biography Rockwell Kent was born in Tarrytown, New York. Kent was of English descent. He lived much of ...

* Roy King * Eugene Kingman * Alison Mason Kingsbury * Vance Kirkland * Georgina Klitgaard *

Karl Knaths Karl Knaths (October 21, 1891 – March 9, 1971) was an American artist whose personal approach to the Cubist aesthetic led him to create paintings which, while abstract, contained readily identifiable subjects. In addition to the Cubist painte ...

* Albert Kotin * Edward Laning * Robert Laurent * Pietro Lazzari *

Thomas C. Lea III Thomas Calloway Lea III (July 11, 1907 – January 29, 2001) was an American muralist, illustrator, artist, war correspondent, novelist, and historian. The bulk of his art and literary works were about Texas, north-central Mexico, and his Worl ...

Doris Lee Doris Emrick Lee (February 1, 1905 – June 16, 1983) was an American painter known for her figurative painting and printmaking. She won the Logan Medal of the Arts from the Chicago Art Institute in 1935. She is known as one of the most successf ...

* Hilton Leech * Robert Lepper *

Edmund Lewandowski Edmund Lewandowski (1914–1998) was an Americans, American Precisionism, Precisionist artist who was often exhibited in the Downtown Gallery alongside other artists such as Charles Sheeler, Charles Demuth, Georgia O'Keeffe, Ralston Crawford, Georg ...

* Arthur Lidov *

Abraham Lishinsky Abraham Lishinsky (19051982) is an American artist of the 20th Century, a painter and playwright, best known for seven murals completed for the federally funded agencies of the New Deal programs of the 1930s and 1940s. Born in the Russian Empir ...

* Elizabeth Lochrie * Michael Loew *

Frank Long Frank Long was a trackcutter and prospector. In 1882 he discovered the Zeehan-Dundas silver-lead field on the West Coast of Tasmania. Life and career Frank Long was Tasmanian, having been born to ex-convicts in Launceston in approximately 18 ...

Peppino Mangravite Peppino Mangravite (June 28, 1896 – April 26, 1978) was an Italian-American Modernist painter. Peppino Gino Mangravite was born in 1896, on Lipari, an island north of Sicily, where his father, a naval officer, was stationed. As a child he began ...

* Ila Mae McAfee * Ambrose McCarthy * John McCrady * Musa McKim * Miriam McKinnie *

Kindred McLeary Kindred McLeary (December 3, 1901, Weimar, Texas – May 29, 1949) was an American architect, artist and educator. Education Kindred McLeary studied architecture at the University of Texas and earned his degree in 1927. While teaching at the Un ...

* Ludwig Mactarian * Ethel Magafan * Herman Maril * Reginald Marsh *

David Stone Martin David Stone Martin, born David Livingstone Martin (June 13, 1913 – March 6, 1992 in New London, Connecticut) was an American artist best known for his illustrations on jazz record albums.Detailed biographical information is spread throughout ...

* Fletcher Martin * Frank Mechau * Paul Meltsner * Ross Moffett * Stephen Mopope * F. Luis Mora * Carl Morris *

Archibald Motley Archibald John Motley, Jr. (October 7, 1891 – January 16, 1981), was an American visual artist. He studied painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago during the 1910s, graduating in 1918. Motley is most famous for his colorful chroni ...

* Archie Musick * James Michael Newell * Dale Nichols * Emrich Nicholson * William C. Palmer * Alzira Peirce * Waldo Peirce *

Ernest Peixotto Ernest Clifford Peixotto (1869–1940) was an American artist, illustrator, and author. Although he was known mainly for his murals and his travel literature, his artwork also regularly appeared in ''Scribner's Magazine''. His 1916 work ''Our His ...

Guy Pène du Bois Guy Pène du Bois (January 4, 1884 – July 18, 1958) was a 20th-century American painter, art critic, and educator. Born in the U.S. to a French family, his work depicted the culture and society around him: cafes, theatres, and in the twenties, f ...

* Bernard Perlin * Jose Moya del Pino *

Joseph Pollet Joseph C. Pollet (1897–1979) was an American painter, based in New York City and the region. He was best known for his portraits and realistic rural landscapes. Biography Pollet was born in 1897 in Albbruck, Germany and immigrated in 1911 ...

* Dorothy Wagner Puccinelli * J. K. Ralston *

Anton Refregier 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-kn ...

* Edna Reindel * Daniel Rhodes * Louis Leon Ribak *

George Rickey George Warren Rickey (June 6, 1907 – July 17, 2002) was an American kinetic sculptor. Early life and education Rickey was born on June 6, 1907, in South Bend, Indiana. When Rickey was still a child, his father, an executive with Singer S ...

Boardman Robinson Boardman Michael Robinson (1876–1952) was a Canadian-American painter, illustrator and cartoonist. Biography Early years Boardman Robinson was born September 6, 1876 in Nova Scotia. He spent his childhood in England and Canada, before mov ...

* Paul Herman Rohland * Louise Emerson Ronnebeck *

Charles Rosen Charles Welles Rosen (May 5, 1927December 9, 2012) was an American pianist and writer on music. He is remembered for his career as a concert pianist, for his recordings, and for his many writings, notable among them the book ''The Classical Sty ...

Andrée Ruellan Andrée Ruellan (April 6, 1905 – July 15, 2006) was an American artist whose realist work has modernist overtones and commonly depicts everyday scenes in American South and New York City. Born in Manhattan of French descent, she spent her youth ...

Olive Rush Olive Rush (June 10, 1873 near Fairmount, Indiana – August 20, 1966 in Santa Fe, New Mexico) was a painter, illustrator, muralist, and an important pioneer in Native American art education. Her paintings are held in a number of private colle ...

* Paul Sample * Birger Sandzén * Michael Sarisky * Suzanne Scheuer * Martyl Schweig * Elise Seeds *

Ben Shahn Ben Shahn (September 12, 1898 – March 14, 1969) was an American artist. He is best known for his works of social realism, his left-wing political views, and his series of lectures published as ''The Shape of Content''. Biography Shahn was bor ...

* Bernarda Bryson Shahn * Henrietta Shore * Mitchell Siporin *

John French Sloan John French Sloan (August 2, 1871 – September 7, 1951) was an American painter and etcher. He is considered to be one of the founders of the Ashcan school of American art. He was also a member of the group known as The Eight. He is best known ...

* Jacob Getlar Smith * William Sommer *

Moses Soyer Moses Soyer (December 25, 1899 – September 3, 1974) was an American social realist painter. Biography He was born as Moses Schoar and both he and his identical twin brother, Raphael, were born in Borisoglebsk, Tambov, a southern province of R ...

Raphael Soyer Raphael Zalman Soyer (December 25, 1899 – November 4, 1987) was a Russian-born American painter, draftsman, and printmaker. Soyer was referred to as an American scene painter. He is identified as a Social Realist because of his interest in men ...

* Ethel Spears * Francis C. Speight * Niles Spencer *

Harry Sternberg Harry Sternberg (1904–2001), was an American painter, printmaker and educator. He taught at the Art Students League of New York, from 1933 to c. 1966. Biography Childhood, family life, and education Sternberg's parents had immigrated from Ru ...

* Ray Strong * Agnes Tait * Lorin Thompson *

Edward Buk Ulreich Edward Buk Ulreich (February 12, 1884 – July 17, 1966) was an American artist. Born in Hungary, his work includes murals at the United States Courthouse (Tallahassee, Florida, 1936) completed in 1939. His work is also at the National Museu ...

* Stuyvesant Van Veen * Philip von Saltza * James Watrous * Elof Wedin * W. Richard West, Sr. * Jessie Wilber * Lucia Wiley *

Lumen Martin Winter Lumen Martin Winter (December 12, 1908 – April 5, 1982) was an American public artist whose skills in sculpture, paintings, and works on paper, were widely known during his lifetime. His ability to master a wide range of media – including oil ...

* Bernard Zakheim * Marguerite Zorach *

Milford Zornes James Milford Zornes (January 25, 1908 – February 24, 2008) was an American watercolor artist and teacher known as part of the California Scene Painting movement. Biography Milford Zornes was born in rural western Oklahoma, a few miles fro ...

Jirayr Zorthian Jirayr Hamparzoom Zorthian ( hy, Ժիրայր Զորթեան) (April 14, 1911 — January 6, 2004) was an Armenian American artist. Biography Early life Born of Armenian parents on April 14, 1911, in Kütahya, Western Anatolia, Ottoman E ...

48-State Mural Competition

A competition for one mural to be painted in a post office in each of the 48 states (plus Washington, D.C.) was held in November 1939 at the

Corcoran Gallery The Corcoran Gallery of Art was an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, that is now the location of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, a part of the George Washington University. Overview The Corcoran School of the Arts & Desi ...

. The jury selecting the winners was composed of four artists:

Maurice Sterne Maurice Sterne ( lv, Moriss Šterns, 1877 or 1878 – July 23, 1957), was an American sculptor and painter remembered today for his association with philanthropist Mabel Dodge Luhan, to whom he was married from 1916 to 1923. Biography Ster ...

(Chairman), Henry Varnum Poor, Edgar Miller, and

. Winners were chosen from the original mural studies, not completed murals; community response to artist proposals sometimes resulted in revised designs.

Notes

References

External links

*Historian, United States Postal Service.
New Deal Art in Post Offices
' (September 2015) *David Lembeck,
Rediscovering the People's Art, New Deal Murals in Pennsylvania Post Offices
', with photographs by Michael Mutmansky, (2008)

(2009)

(2009)
The History of United States Post Office Murals
(2018) {{United States Postal Service Murals in the United States Public art in the United States United States Postal Service Section of Painting and Sculpture Treasury Relief Art Project