- City:
- Weatherford, OK
- Site Type:
- Art Works, Murals
- New Deal Agencies:
- Arts Programs, Treasury Section of Fine Arts (TSFA)
- Artist:
- Oscar E. Berninghaus
Description
The post office contains a 1939 Section of Fine Arts mural by Oscar Berninghaus entitled “Terminus of the Railroad, 1898-1901.”
The railroad ended at Weatherford from 1898-1901 and this work depicts the station, a train engine, and surrounding covered wagons and horses. It depicts the flat western plains of Oklahoma in the area with sparse trees in the background.
Oscar Berninghaus was born in St. Louis, MO and was largely self taught, though he attended class part-time at Washington University. Growing up painting the levee in St. Louis, he absorbed tales of the old West and travelled to Colorado and New Mexico, where he was influenced by the Taos artists and to which he returned most summers. He was employed as a printmaker in St. Louis, producing chromolithographs of various western subjects with a series for Anheuser Busch, and moved to Taos in 1921.
Source notes
Park and Markowitz, Democratic Vistas, Post Offices and Public Art in the New Deal, 1984.Site originally submitted by Charles Swaney on February 2, 2013.
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The Run on the Opening of the Oklahoma Territory should’ve been picked