We Interrupt This Broadcast

Today marks the anniversary of the first scheduled radio broadcast.

On election night—November 2, 1920—the first commercial radio broadcast covered presidential election returns. Radio Broadcast, painted in the early 1930s by Julia Eckel, captures the drama and excitement of early radio programs.

A 1939 article from the Washington Daily News describes the native Washingtonian and her work: "Miss Eckel was one of the first Washington artists to be engaged on the Public Works of Art Project.… Her work has always been marked by a striking, passionate quality, but her recent canvases reveal a growing serenity, a lowering of her high keyed palette, greater subtlety in color and a maturing control over the first heated impulse to paint."

Pictured: Julia Eckel, born 1909, Radio Broadcast, about 1933–34, oil, 40 1/8 x 55 5/8 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor.