User:Buster7/Post Office Murals

Point of interest

Murals were produced from 1934 to 1943 in the United States through the Section of Painting and Sculpture, later called the Section of Fine Arts, of the Treasury Department. Paul Theodore Arlt was an artist with the United States Department of the Treasury's Section of Fine Arts and painted the post office mural, The Section, in the Enterprise post office in 1941. The post office was torn down in 1991, but Mr. Arlt's mural, "Saturday in Enterprise," was preserved and now hangs in the Enterprise Public Library.

Cleveland, Ohio

Artwork was commissioned for 19 post offices in the Cleveland area.

In 2006, only eight are still operational. In those eight, the artwork from the Depression era was still present, though almost all needed cleaning and modest restoration. These include
* Clarence Carter’s mural, Ravenna Post Office, 330-297-7626, 150 N. Chestnut Street, Early Ravenna;
* John Csosz’s mural for Cleveland Post Office, University Center (aka Station) (newly restored), 216-791-8435, 1950 E. 101 Street, Historical and Modern Scenes ;
* Richard Zoellner’s mural, Cleveland (Pearlbrook Station) Post Office, (216) 398-9815, 4160 Pearl Road, Ore Docks and Steel Mills;
* Lloyd R. Ney’s painting, New London Post Office, 419-929-0761, 86 E. Main Street, New London Facets;
* W. Bimel Kehm’s plaster relief Citizens for Struthers;
* Glen Shaw’s two stirring murals, Warren Post Office, 330-392-1571, 201 High Street, Romance of Steel, Old and Romance of Steel, Modern;
* Hubert Mesibov’s painting, Hubbard Post Office, 330-543-8148, 44 E. Liberty Street, Steel Industry;
* Aldo Lazzarini’s painting, Orrville Post Office, 330-682-7831, 145 N. Vine Street, Judge Smith Orr and Robert Taggard Planning the New Settlement of Orrville, 1852.

Three of the post office buildings had new uses, but retained their Federal artworks

• The downtown Cleveland post office had become an office building (two panels; Post Office Interiors by Jack J. Greitzer);
  * the Bedford post office is being used by an architectural firm (painting, Drift toward Industrialism by Karl Anderson);
  * and the Amherst post office building is now the city’s headquarters for a “Main Street” revitalization project (painting, Pioneers Crossing the Ohio River by Michael Loew).

Another five artworks were located in good condition, but have been moved from their original locations

Three are in new post offices, including a wood carving, Stone Quarries, by Moissaye Marans in Chagrin Falls; the recently restored William Sommer painting Rural Homestead that hangs in the lobby of the new Geneva, Ohio, post office; and a terra cotta relief by Joseph Walter, Iron and Steel Industry, for Campbell. In Chardon, an accounting firm purchased the building, and the mural, Maple Sugar Camp by George A. Picken, was moved to a county office building nearby. F. Thornton Martin’s painting, They Came as Wadsworth’s First Settlers after the War of 1812, now hangs in the Wadsworth City Hall.

Artwork for the Girard, Medina, and Willoughby post offices is either missing or destroyed.

Source

Post Office History

Boonville, Indiana

[1] Post Office "covers"for sale

New Deal Art Registry

Home

Chicago, IL

• Cardiss Collins Post Office, 312-983-8130, 433 West Harrison Street, Advent of the Pioneer-1851 by Frances Foy (Canal Street PO ?)
• Kedzie-Grace Post Office, 3750 N. Kedzie, Mercury aluminum relief by Peter Paul Ott
• Lakeview Post Office, 1343 W. Irving Park, Chicago--Epic of a Great City by Henry Sternberg
• Logan Square Post Office, 773-489-2855, 2339 North California Avenue, The Post
• Loop Station Post Office, 219 S. Clark Street, The Great Indian Council--Chicago by Gustaf Dalstrom, husband of Frances Foy
• Morgan Park Post Office, 773-238-2791, 1805 West Monterey Avenue, Father Marquette-1674 by J. Theodore Johnson

Not just Post offices

Lane Tech artwork

Lane Tech Artwork and Architect

Perkins’ Lane Manual Training School opened its doors in 1908. To encourage the Lane students in their endeavors, the Public School Art Society, led by Mrs. John B. Buckingham, soon commissioned advanced students at the Art Institute of Chicago to paint four labor-themed murals.

• (4---Report of the Chicago Public School Art Society, 1909, p. 10; Sylvia Christina Rohr, Mural Painting and Public Schools in Chicago, 1905–1941 (PhD dissertation, University of Pittsburgh, 2004), pp. 92-93.)

In 1913, the PSAS commissioned George Henry Brandt to execute another eight murals depicting Native American life. (Most, if not all, of these murals were later relocated to the current Lane Tech building.)

• (5---Heather Becker, Art for the People: The Rediscovery and Preservation of Progressive- and WPA-Era Murals in the Chicago Public Schools, 1904–1943 (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2002), pp. 146-147)

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• Between 1939 and 1941, the WPA funded and built the adjacent Academic Gothic style stadium. Federal New Deal funds also helped to fill the immense building with art. Among the many works that grace the corridors are frescoes in the lunchroom by Edgar Britton, frescoes in the auditorium foyer by Mitchell Siporin, a painted fire curtain in the auditorium by John Walley, and carvings in the library by Peter Paul Ott. The art collection includes dozens of murals created for A Century of Progress, Chicago’s second World’s Fair. The art collection deteriorated over the years, but since 1995 Lane Tech teacher Flora Doody has spearheaded an ambitious effort to conserve the artworks. (9)