Artwork Details
- Title
- Clearing the Right of Way (mural study, Garrett, Indiana Post Office)
- Artist
- Date
- ca. 1938
- Location
- Dimensions
- 33 1⁄4 x 29 3⁄8 in. (84.3 x 74.6 cm)
- Credit Line
- Transfer from the Internal Revenue Service through the General Services Administration
- Mediums
- Mediums Description
- oil on canvas mounted on paperboard
- Classifications
- Subjects
- Figure group — male
- Occupation — industry — lumber
- Architecture — vehicle — train
- New Deal — Treasury Section of Painting and Sculpture — Indiana
- Architecture Exterior — civic — post office
- Cityscape — Indiana — Garrett
- Study — mural study
- Object Number
- 1962.8.66
Artwork Description
During the 1930s, Joe Cox worked for the Works Progress Administration, a government-sponsored program that put artists to work and made them part of America’s workforce. He identified with manual laborers whose survival was at stake, and Cox’s mural study for the Garrett, Indiana, post office reflects his sympathies. He chose to show the loggers hard at work, their muscular bodies bending over their tasks. Garrett had been mapped out in the 1870s by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. The Chicago division of the B&O main line ran through, carrying people and goods to Baltimore and Washington, fueling Garrett’s economy and providing work for townspeople. During the Depression, however, the railroad’s consolidation led to many layoffs. This mural would have served as a reminder of the town’s heyday, when hard work and risk taking brought prosperity.