Post Office Mural – Piggott AR

Description

Dan Rhodes completed this oil-on-canvas mural, entitled “Air Mail,” in 1941 with funds provided by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts. It is viewable in the Piggott post office lobby.

The mural was featured on a sheet of U.S. postage stamps: “Post Office Murals.” The First-Day ceremony for the stamps was held in front of the Piggott post office on April 10, 2019. “Air Mail” was fully restored and touched up in anticipation of the event.

UCA.edu: “Daniel Rhodes was commissioned for $700 to create a mural for Piggott, Arkansas, only after the original artist, Loyle Houser, did not perform in a timely manner. Rhodes had composed a mural centered around communication entitled Communication by Mail for the Marion, Iowa, post office in 1939. He resolved to employ a similar theme for the Piggott mural, lauding the significance of airmail for small, isolated communities in rural America.

“The mural depicts a scene of extolling the ideas of communication. At the left, a local citizen hands a letter to the postmaster, who subsequently assists the pilots loading the mailbags onto the idling airplane in the center. The scene eulogizes modern technology and its ability to connect rural America to the rest of the world.”