- City:
- Westerville, OH
- Site Type:
- Art Works, Murals
- New Deal Agencies:
- Arts Programs, Treasury Section of Fine Arts (TSFA)
- Completed:
- 1937
- Artist:
- Olive Nuhfer
Description
Olive Nuhfer painted this oil-on-canvas mural, entitled “The Daily Mail,” in 1937 with funding from the Treasury Section of Fine Arts. Created for the then-new Westerville post office, it has since been relocated to USPS’s current operation.
From the Pittsburgh Press, December 19, 1937:
A cool reception was accorded the mural painted by Olive Nuhfer, Pittsburgh artist, for the village of Westerville, O., where it has been installed in the post office, under a Government art project. Commented “Public Opinion,” the community newspaper: “The painting is well done, but it seems to us that the artist had in mind a street scene bordering on the steel plants of Pittsburgh, rather than Westerville. The houses and principal characters, especially the housewife and the urchin, give one that impression. They just don’t happen to be typical of Westerville.”
The Pittsburgh artist’s mural depicted an typical village street scene, with an average looking postman delivering mail. The artist replied to the criticism by admitting that she had not visited the town in order to make sketches for the mural, because the Government had awarded her the commission on the basis of sketches she had submitted for murals in a post office in Maryland. They were considered suitable for the Ohio town.
Source notes
Originally posted in the New Deal Art Registry: https://www.newdealartregistry.org/ Text excerpt courtesy of the Pittsburgh Press: https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=QyEbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=MUwEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3976%2C325739At this Location:
Site Details
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It is now hanging in the customer service area of the post office, behind the retail counter.