Post Office (former) Murals – Livingston TX

City:
Livingston, TX

Site Type:
Murals, Art Works

New Deal Agencies:
Treasury Section of Fine Arts (TSFA), Arts Programs

Started:
1940

Completed:
1940

Artist:
Theodore Van Soelen

Quality of Information:
Good

Marked:
Yes

Site Survival:
Extant

Description

The oil painting, “Buffalo Hunting,” was one of two murals created in 1940 for the then-new former post office building in Livingston, Texas. It depicts an Indian brave on a brown and white pony riding next to a buffalo with his bow ready to shoot. Another buffalo is behind the pony. They are riding across a desert with a hawk flying and a roadrunner in front of the buffalo. According to the plaque below the painting, the artist, Theodore Van Soelen, was funded by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts. (The work is sometimes mis-attributed to the WPA.)

The Postal Service relocated in 1975, though both initial murals remained in the old post office building, which became the police department. In the late 1990s, after a new police department was built, the city was ready to demolish the old P.O. (furthermore, the then-mayor was not a fan of the murals). The local historical society then began a local campaign to save the murals. A USPS conservator was sent from Houston but only restored “Buffalo Hunting,” which hangs in the present Livingston post office. The other mural, “Landscape Mural,” survives only as one 3’x3′ section—in very poor condition—at a local museum.

Source notes

https://www.flickr.com/photos/auvet/19939267040/in/photostream/

Plaque below the oil painting

https://www.wpamurals.org/texas.htm

Site originally submitted by Eveline Evans on July 25, 2018.

Location Info


1325 W Church St.
Livingston, TX 77351
Polk County

Coordinates: 30.710423, -94.948199

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