A Common Canvas: Pennsylvania's New Deal Post Office Murals
Bus Trip to Harrisburg
Wednesday, May 6, 2009

The Centre County Historical Society is sponsoring a bus trip to Harrisburg to visit the exhibit "A Common Canvas: Pennsylvania's New Deal Post Office Murals" on Wednesday, May 6. A bus will transport visitors from State College to The State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg, where co-curators Dr. Curt Miner and David Lembeck will greet us and answer questions about the exhibit.

The bus will leave from Centre Furnace Mansion parking lot at 8:00 a.m. and will return by 5:30 p.m. An optional tour of the Historical Society of Dauphin County is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. (admission is $4.50). Interested individuals should contact CCHS for more information by calling (814) 234-4779 or emailing info@centrecountyhistory.org no later than MONDAY, APRIL 20.

In 1933, the administration of newly elected President Franklin Roosevelt launched an ambitious program to place murals and sculptures in post offices across the country. To coincide with the national 75th anniversary of the New Deal, The State Museum of Pennsylvania brings together these same artworks for the first time in this special exhibition to offer a common canvas of Pennsylvania that has faded from the landscape, but not from memory.

This exhibit includes photographs, color studies, archival images, and original artwork associated with some of the 88 artworks commissioned for Pennsylvania post offices between 1933 and 1942. Although the artworks are widely dispersed across Pennsylvania, they represent a treasure trove of public art and a unique portrait of Pennsylvania society and culture circa the Great Depression. Each artwork, whether a mural or sculpture, aimed to capture something intrinsically important about the Pennsylvania community in which they were to be installed. Given the Commonwealth's legacy as a manufacturing state, industries such as coal and steel are recurring motifs, but the collection also reflects other traditions as well: agriculture, glass making, lumbering, historical events/individuals, Native Americans and a variety of town and streetscapes.

This exhibition, co-curated by The State Museum's Dr. Curt Miner, Senior Curator of Popular Culture, and State College native David Lembeck, represents the first public exhibition of Pennsylvania's collection, and will offer visitors a rare opportunity to glimpse, in one venue, what is likely the Commonwealth's largest public art collection.

This exhibit is open through May 17, 2009.