Post Office Mural – Crystal Springs MS

Description

“Harvest” illustrated the important truck farming industry in the Crystal Springs, Mississippi area in the 1930s (Enzweiler, 1992). La Cagnina’s mural featured farm workers and women packers preparing vegetables for shipment. Crystal Springs was known as the “tomatroplis of the world” during that period, and shipped vegetables all over the US via train, apparently providing employment and income that benefitted the community during the years of the Great Depression (Nelson-Easley, 2007).

According to La Cagnina, the mural was inappropriately restored when a preservative glaze was applied, giving the mural a “black tonality” and altering the “original pearly gray tonality” (Enzweiler, describing personal communication with the artist). Enzweiler described it as the obvious commitment of the community to preserve the mural, however short-sited the preservation attempt may have been.