Post Office Murals – Warren OH

Description

“In all, artwork was commissioned for 19 post offices in the Cleveland area. In 2006, only eight are still operational. In those eight, the artwork from the Depression era was still present, though almost all needed cleaning and modest restoration. These include Clarence Carter’s mural for Ravenna; John Csosz’s mural for Cleveland, University Center (newly restored); Richard Zoellner’s mural Ore Docks and Steel Mills for Cleveland’s Pearlbrook post office; Lloyd R. Ney’s painting New London Facets for New London; W. Bimel Kehm’s plaster relief Citizens for Struthers; Glen Shaw’s two stirring murals Romance of Steel, Old and Romance of Steel, Modern for Warren; Hubert Mesibov’s painting Steel Industry for Hubbard, and Aldo Lazzarini’s painting Judge Smith Orr and Robert Taggard Planning the New Settlement of Orrville, in Orrville, Ohio.

Three of the post office buildings had new uses, but retained their Federal artworks: the downtown Cleveland post office had become an office building (two panels; Post Office Interiors by Jack J. Greitzer); the Bedford post office is being used by an architectural firm (painting, Drift toward Industrialism by Karl Anderson); and the Amherst post office building is now the city’s headquarters for a “Main Street” revitalization project (painting, Pioneers Crossing the Ohio River by Michael Loew).

Another five artworks were located in good condition, but have been moved from their original locations. Three are in new post offices, including a wood carving, Stone Quarries, by Moissaye Marans in Chagrin Falls; the recently restored William Sommer painting Rural Homestead that hangs in the lobby of the new Geneva, Ohio, post office; and a terra cotta relief by Joseph Walter, Iron and Steel Industry, for Campbell. In Chardon, an accounting firm purchased the building, and the mural—Maple Sugar Camp by George A. Picken—was moved to a county office building nearby. F. Thornton Martin’s painting, They Came as Wadsworth’s First Settlers after the War of 1812, now hangs in the Wadsworth City Hall.

Artwork for the Girard, Medina, and Willoughby post offices is either missing or destroyed.”