Holyoke Post Office Mural - Holyoke MA

City:: Holyoke, MA
Site Type:: Art Works, Murals
New Deal Agencies:: Arts Programs, Treasury Section of Fine Arts (TSFA)
Artist:: Ross E. Moffett

Description

Medium: oil on canvas

This 1936 Section of Fine Arts mural by Ross E. Moffett depicts “Captain Alezur Holyoke’s Exploring Party on the Connecticut River.” The mural depicts the original explorers of the Connecticut River lead by the town’s namesake using the elaborate marble doorframe to define the small hill the explorers were standing on.

Ross Moffett was born in Iowa and studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Student’s League in New York City. He moved to the bay area of California and then to Provincetown, MA where he died.

Source notes

C.W. Short and R. Stanley-Brown. "Public Buildings: A Survey of Architecture of Projects Constructed by Federal and Other Governmental Bodies Between the Years 1933 and 1939 with the Assistance of the Public Works Administration." (1939). Park and Markowitz, Democratic Vistas, Post Offices and Public Art in the New Deal, 1984. https://www.newdealartregistry.org/

Site originally submitted by Charles Swaney on December 11, 2011.