Massachusetts State House Murals – Boston MA

Description

Artist Edward Brodney won two WPA competitions during the 1930s to paint two murals at Massachusetts’s State House in Boston, MA. “Columbia Knighting Her World War Disabled” and “World War Mothers” are located on the second floor underneath the statehouse dome.

The New York Times:
“In 1936 Mr. Brodney won a competition sponsored by the Federal Works Progress Administration, which supported many artistic projects during the Depression, to paint a mural for the Massachusetts Statehouse. It was called ‘Columbia Knighting Her World War Disabled,’ and he persuaded friends to pose, since the W.P.A. could not afford models.”

“[I]n 1938 Mr. Brodney won another W.P.A. competition to paint a second mural in the Statehouse. Called ‘World War Mothers,’ it is one of a handful of military murals with women as subjects. Mr. Brodney used poor women in settlement houses as models to capture ”a faraway look of wanting and loss.” After federal funds ran out, he used his own money to finish the project.”