Mail Service in the Tropics (mural study, U.S. Post Office Department, Washington, D.C.)

Rockwell Kent, Mail Service in the Tropics (mural study, U.S. Post Office Department, Washington, D.C.), ca. 1935-1936, pencil and oil on plywood, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the General Services Administration, 1982.86.2
Copied Rockwell Kent, Mail Service in the Tropics (mural study, U.S. Post Office Department, Washington, D.C.), ca. 1935-1936, pencil and oil on plywood, 13 1⁄2 x 26 1⁄2 in. (34.3 x 67.3 cm.), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the General Services Administration, 1982.86.2

Artwork Details

Title
Mail Service in the Tropics (mural study, U.S. Post Office Department, Washington, D.C.)
Artist
Date
ca. 1935-1936
Location
Not on view
Dimensions
13 1⁄2 x 26 1⁄2 in. (34.3 x 67.3 cm.)
Credit Line
Transfer from the General Services Administration
Mediums
Mediums Description
pencil and oil on plywood
Classifications
Subjects
  • Figure group
  • Architecture — vehicle — airplane
  • Animal — horse
  • Occupation — service — postman
  • Landscape — Puerto Rico
  • Study — mural study
Object Number
1982.86.2
Linked Open Data
https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/1982.86.2

Artwork Description

Rockwell Kent chose to celebrate Puerto Rico's first airmail delivery in a scene that verges on abstraction. This was a risky approach for a WPA muralist assigned to tell an accessible and hopeful story on the wall of Washington’s Post Office building. The angles play off of each other in a rhythmic and unified design so that the horse's form appears to echo the shape of the airplane in the background. Sparks flew on Capitol Hill when Kent installed the mural, but the debate had little to do with the style of the painting. The artist cleverly included a protest statement in the finished mural. There, the young woman in the foreground holds a letter written in an Eskimo dialect that says, "To the people of Puerto Rico, our friends! Let us change chiefs. That alone can make us equal and free!" Kent received his $3000 fee for the mural and denied that he had shown partisanship, saying that "The cause of independence in Puerto Rico needs no propaganda. Everybody knows that the majority of the people down there are in favor of it."

Audio