Mineola Historical Museum (Old Post Office) Mural - Mineola TX

City:: Mineola, TX
Site Type:: Art Works, Murals
New Deal Agencies:: Arts Programs, Federal & Military Operations, Treasury Section of Fine Arts (TSFA), Treasury Department
Completed:: 1938
Artist:: Bernard Zakheim

Description

This building was originally the post office, but then was repurposed as the Mineola Historical Museum. The oil-on-canvas mural by Bernard Zakheim, entitled “New and Old Methods of Transportation,” was funded by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts.

From Art Daily, on the occasion of the announcement of its restoration:

During the Great Depression, jobs were scarce and rural inhabitants were struggling to come to terms with the explosion of new industries and new forms of transportation. Mineola residents, who at the time were mostly farmers, were trying to catch up with their country, which was rapidly changing from being an agricultural nation to becoming one of the most modern in the world. The city boasted a painting that told the tale of progress in America. It was spawned by an artist whose rich artistic background, like that of Northeast Texas itself, has become a proud tradition. In the 1970s, that painting was tragically lost, but soon it may be reborn. The mural-sized painting, “New and Old Methods of Transportation” by Bernard Zakheim, was commissioned by the government as part of a job program inspired by Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal. The artist sought to depict Mineola of the era in his creation; the image featured two horses drawing a carriage and balking at the sight of the shimmering Milwaukee 152 train barreling through town. Two postal workers passed by with letter bags, while a modern airplane flew above. The painting, also commissioned to honor the U.S. Postal Service, occupied a 13-by-9-foot space on the wall of the Mineola post office until the late 1970s or early 1980s, when it was relocated for an unknown reason to a storage basement. (https://artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=11&int_new=9402#.VLghOOd6OIc)