In 1939, the United States Federal Works Agency conducted a forty-eight state mural competition to fill regional post offices across the country with contemporary art. Thirty-six-year-old Adolph Gottlieb entered the competition to create a mural for an Arizona post office. Based on the time he and his wife spent in Arizona in 1937 and 1938, Gottlieb's mural submission was an interpretation of the Southwestern desert and mountains that the Gottliebs treasured while living near Tuscon. The small home in which they resided during this time, and their Model T, can be seen on the mural's left side.
Gottlieb's submission was selected by the committee of three artists, Olin Dows, Edgar Miller, and Maurice Sterne, to hang on the walls of the Yerington, Nevada post office. About an hour's drive outside of Reno, Yerington's landscape greatly resembles Gottlieb's original image. The mural references the desert and rugged mountain views seen from the town. The painting was completed at Gottlieb's studio in Brooklyn and sent to Yerington for installation in 1941. Gottlieb titled the mural Homestead on the Prairie, and it still hangs in the post office today.
An Archival Review of the Yerington Post Office Mural
"I would like to do something with the mural to please myself and not merely as a job and would like to repaint it for the 12 x 3 3/4 rectangle. The extra work will not matter so long as I can carry out the work to satisfy my own standard of quality."
-Adolph Gottlieb in an August 1940 letter to Edward Rowan
After Gottlieb's mural, originally intended for an Arizona post office, was completed, the artist altered his design to better represent the Nevada landscape and reworked the mural to fit the dimensions of Yerington's post office.
The correspondence below between the artist and Edward Rowan of the Federal Works Administration documents these changes.
Image: Study For Yerington Post Office Mural, c.1939, mixed media on paper, unknown dimensions.
Image: Gottlieb's May 4th, 1940 letter written to the Federal Works Administration’s Section of Fine Arts Chief where he discusses the adjustments he plans to make to the size of the canvas which was originally intended for a post office in Arizona
Image: Mr. Rowan's May 10th, 1940 reply.
Image: A letter to Adolph Gottlieb from Federal Works Administration’s confirming the successful installation of his mural. Written February 25, 1941.
Image: A memorandum verifying the installation of Adolph Gottlieb's mural in the Yerington, NV post office, March 31, 1941.
The Mural in Focus Through the Years
The mural was warmly received by the state of Nevada. Below is a selection of press referencing the mural and correspondence with the Yerington post office:
"Nevada's mural goes to the new post office at Yerington, Nev., for which the work of Adolph Gottlieb was chosen. The painting, which is conservatively modern, by means of house, barn, windmill, corral, and Ford car, suggests ranch life in the foreground, and there is a stretch of mountains across the background."
– An excerpt from the Reno Evening Gazette, November 1939.
"The post office murals represent the collective taste of the citizens of the community, together with the individual taste of the artist. Rural Americans preferred the paintings that reproduce experiences and scenes of their history. In spirit, many of these scenes are local American epics."
– An excerpt from Life Magazine, December 4, 1939
"A report from the Postmaster states that the mural has been satisfactorily installed. A photograph of the completed work has been submitted to this office and in the opinion of the Section of Fine Arts is satisfactory."
– An excerpt from the above memorandum sent to Adolph Gottlieb upon the final installation of the mural, March 1941