- City:
- Portland, ME
- Site Type:
- Art Works, Murals
- New Deal Agencies:
- Arts Programs, Treasury Section of Fine Arts (TSFA)
- Artist:
- Henry Mattson
Description
The post office itself was started by the Treasury Department in 1932, but may have been completed with New Deal money. The post office contains two 1937 Section of Fine Arts murals by Henry Mattson entitled “The Rocky Coast of Maine” and “The Sea.”
These 2 works flank an entrance to the post office, showing the roiling sea, gulls
overhead and the rocky coast pictured in “The Sea”. “The Rocky Coast of Maine”, by contrast shows only the land dominated by rock with small shrubs and a lone pine, a work that has elements of abstraction in it.
Henry Mattson was born in Gothenburg, Sweden and immigrated to Worcester, MA. He studied at the Worcester School of Art while working during the day in a factory. He moved to Chicago and then to Woodstock, NY where he lived for the remainder of his life.
Source notes
Park and Markowitz, Democratic Vistas, Post Offices and Public Art in the New Deal, 1984.Site originally submitted by Charles Swaney on January 28, 2013.
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