Post Office (former) Murals – Livingston TX

Description

The oil painting, “Buffalo Hunting,” was one of two murals created in 1940 for the then-new former post office building in Livingston, Texas. It depicts an Indian brave on a brown and white pony riding next to a buffalo with his bow ready to shoot. Another buffalo is behind the pony. They are riding across a desert with a hawk flying and a roadrunner in front of the buffalo. According to the plaque below the painting, the artist, Theodore Van Soelen, was funded by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts. (The work is sometimes mis-attributed to the WPA.)

The Postal Service relocated in 1975, though both initial murals remained in the old post office building, which became the police department. In the late 1990s, after a new police department was built, the city was ready to demolish the old P.O. (furthermore, the then-mayor was not a fan of the murals). The local historical society then began a local campaign to save the murals. A USPS conservator was sent from Houston but only restored “Buffalo Hunting,” which hangs in the present Livingston post office. The other mural, “Landscape Mural,” survives only as one 3’x3′ section—in very poor condition—at a local museum.