Post Office Mural – Pawnee City NE

Description

The historic post office in Pawnee City, Nebraska houses an example of New Deal artwork: “The Auction,” an oil-on-canvas mural painted by Kenneth Evett in 1942.

“Kenneth Evett studied with Henry Varnum Poor and George Biddle. Besides “The Auction” at Pawnee City, Evett painted two others in Colorado and Kansas. He taught at Cornell from 1948 to 1979, returning to Nebraska in 1954 to paint three murals in the rotunda of the State Capitol in Lincoln.

Evett was not happy with the subject matter of the mural that he was asked to paint in Caldwell, Kansas: that of cowboys driving cattle. In fact he stated, “I don’t want to be uncooperative, but must we do historical murals indefinitely? The conception of cowboy, herding cattle is especially unexciting to me. Yet here is this postmaster with his heart set on cowboys herding cattle.” Evett was encouraged by the federal government to follow the postmaster’s suggestion. “We are very anxious whenever possible to give the public what they want,” he was told. Evett was very pleased with the subject matter he was asked to deal with in the Nebraska mural: that of the small town farm auction. Evett’s mural represents a variation to the agricultural theme — “a complex and sophisticated composition depicting people at a farm auction.””
(https://communitydisc.westside66.org)