Post Office Mural – Clarksville AR

Description

This 5′ x 10′ oil-on-canvas mural entitled “How Happy Was the Occasion” was painted by Mary M. Purser in 1939. Her husband, Stuart Purser, painted murals for the Carrolton, AL; Leland, MS; Ferriday & Gretna, LA post offices.

“Mary May Purser was commissioned for $470 to create a mural for Clarksville, Arkansas on the basis of competent designs submitted in the Vicksburg, Post Office Competition. Purser visited Clarksville in search of appropriate subject matter and spoke with the local postmaster. The main source of information for the mural came from Ella Molloy Langford’s book, History of Johnson County, Arkansas: The first hundred years, which described Clarksville as it existed in the 1840s. Purser’s mural is the only Arkansas mural that depicts the actual post office into which the work was installed.”

(uca.edu)