- City:
- Brevard, NC
- Site Type:
- Murals, Art Works
- New Deal Agencies:
- Treasury Section of Fine Arts (TSFA), Arts Programs
- Completed:
- 1941
- Artist:
- Pietro Lazzari
- Site Survival:
- Extant
Description
The Transylvania County Library in Brevard, North Carolina houses a 1941 Section of Fine Arts mural commissioned for the city’s old post office: “Good News,” painted by Pietro Lazzari. The medium is glazed tempera.
The mural remained in its original location, which served as a post office until 1972 and then the now-former Transylvania County Library building, until 2006.
Source notes
https://www.wpamurals.org/ncarolin.htm
"PWA Constructed Brevard's Old Post Office," The Transylvania Times, Oct. 19, 2014: https://www.transylvaniatimes.com/lifestyles/pwa-constructed-brevards-old-post-office/article_54b2536b-ced7-5fbc-bdd5-0bd551f78184.html (accessed Jun. 7, 2022)
Site originally submitted by Evan Kalish on June 7, 2022.
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Site Details
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Dale Ferguson, Ph.D.
The “key” to the Brevard mural are the letters in the hands of the locals. This was a common theme in murals and was supposed to support that it was the Post Office that bound the nation together, no matter who you were or where you were. This was truly artwork for the common people, who would see it on the Post Office wall and not in an art gallery. It was also painted in the “depression” style. The faces are the often grim faces of hard working people. This too was common and was valued early on in the programs . It was from a comment FDR made that he liked seeing the hard working faces that had been through tough times before in American history, depicted in the artwork of the depression Federal arts programs. This was one of the last murals to be installed. After Pearl Harbor, Federal artwork spending was suspended and the SFA program died. Most of the artists who painted these murals won competitions run by the SFA or were seen for their talent. The murals which are left today are an invaluable collection of artwork from a very different time, that also tells a story. They have controversy with their depictions of people, censorship and selection of topics. Like all of these murals, the story of how the artist selected the artwork and what it meant is retained in the National Archives in Record Group 121.