Artwork Details
- Title
- Men and Wheat (mural study, Seneca, Kansas Post Office)
- Artist
- Date
- 1939
- Location
- Not on view
- Dimensions
- 15 1⁄2 x 35 1⁄4 in. (39.3 x 89.5 cm.)
- Credit Line
- Transfer from the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service
- Mediums
- Mediums Description
- oil on canvas
- Classifications
- Subjects
- New Deal — Treasury Section of Painting and Sculpture — Kansas
- Figure group
- Occupation — farm — harvesting
- Landscape — farm
- Architecture — machine — farm machine
- Study — mural study
- Object Number
- 1965.18.5
Artwork Description
In 1939, when many New Deal programs were at risk of cancellation for political as well as economic reasons, Edward Bruce and Edward Rowan hoped to save the Section by enlisting popular support. They selected a post office in each state to receive a mural, and launched a nationwide competition. Hundreds of artists submitted designs in the Forty-Eight States competition, and winning sketches, among them Jones's Men and Wheat, William Bunn's Mississippi Packets, Jenne Magafan's Western Town, Edward (Buk) Ulreich's Advance Guard of the West, and Alton Tobey's The Last Halt were illustrated in Life magazine. Although an important group of murals resulted, the Forty-Eight States competition did not stimulate widespread public demand for a permanent fine arts program.
Special Delivery: Murals for the New Deal Era, 1988