Mary M. Purser | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1913 Chicago Illinois |
| Died | 1986 (aged 72–73) Alachua, Florida |
| Nationality | American |
| Known for | muralist |
| Spouse | Stuart R. Purser |
Mary May Purser (1913 - 1986) was an American painter. She is best known for her New Deal era mural in the Clarksville, Arkansas Post Office.
Purser nee was born on August 16, 1901, in Chicago, Illinois. [1] She attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She married fellow artist Stuart R. Purser (1907 - 1986) with whom she had two children. [2] Purser never graduated from the Art Institute, leaving at the time of her marriage, but she eventually earned a B.A. from the University of Mississippi, then an MFA from the University of Florida. [3] [2]
The Pursers moved several times as Stuart pursued his teaching career. They lived in Washington, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Florida, with Stuart serving as the head of the department of art at University of Florida. Mary taught for a time at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga when the family resided there. [2]
In 1939 Purser completed the oil-on-canvas mural How Happy Was the Occasion for the Clarksville, Arkansas Post Office. The mural was funded by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts (TSFA) and Purser received payment of $470. [4] [5]
Clarksville is a city in Johnson County, Arkansas, United States. As of the 2010 census the population was 9,178, up from 7,719 in 2000. As of 2018, the estimated population was 9,743. The city is the county seat of Johnson County. It is nestled between the Arkansas River and the foothills of the Ozark Mountains, and Interstate 40 and US Highway 64 intersect within the city limits. Clarksville-Johnson County is widely known for its peaches, scenic byways and abundance of natural outdoor recreational activities.
The Treasury Section of Painting and Sculpture was a New Deal art project established on October 16, 1934, and administered by the Procurement Division of the United States Department of the Treasury.
Xavier Gonzalez (1898–1993) was an American artist. He was born in Almeria, Spain. He lived in Argentina and Mexico for some time, and was planning on becoming an engineer in a gold mine. In 1925, he immigrated to the United States.
Julien Binford was an American painter. He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and then in France. Settling in Powhatan County, Virginia, he was known for his paintings of the rural population of his neighborhood as well as for his murals. During World War II (1944) he lived in New York City and painted views of the port during the war. These paintings were featured in Life magazine. In 1946 he was appointed professor of painting at Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, Virginia, where he worked until his retirement in 1971.
Ethel Magafan was an American painter and muralist.
United States post office murals are notable examples of New Deal art produced during the years 1934–1943.
Lucile Esma Lundquist Blanch was an American artist, art educator, and Guggenheim Fellow. She was noted for the murals she created for the U.S. Treasury Department's Section of Fine Arts during the Great Depression.
George Snow Hill (1898–1969) was a painter and sculptor in the United States known as a muralist. He lived in St. Petersburg, Florida until his death in 1969. He founded the Hill School of Art in St. Petersburg in 1946.
Elizabeth E. Terrell was an American artist who completed works for the Works Progress Administration. Born in Toledo, Ohio, Terrell is known for her abstract and modern figures, still life paintings, and murals. She exhibited her art at the Art Institute of Chicago, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and Whitney Museum of American Art. She did frescos, mixed media, mosaics, gouache and oil paintings. She produced a mural at the Starke, Florida Post Office titled "Reforestation" (1942). She was part of an exhibition with Rufino Tamayo and Julian Levi at the Ottumwa Art Center in Ottumwa, Iowa. Her work is in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Frances Foy was an American painter, muralist, illustrator, and etcher born in Chicago, Illinois.
Miriam McKinnie also known as Miriam McKinnie Hofmeier, was an American artist.
Verona Burkhard (1910–2004) was an American artist, known for her murals painted for the U.S. Treasury Department. She participated in four public projects including three United States post office murals and five murals completed for the Immigration and Naturalization Service. She has works in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Western Colorado Center for the Arts. As of 2015, her murals completed for the post offices of Powell, Wyoming; Deer Lodge, Montana; and Kings Mountain, North Carolina are still hanging in the buildings which were the original post offices. In addition to her public artworks, Burkhard received the 1943 Alger Award from the National Association of Women Artists and was one of the first honorees of the "Colorado Women of Achievement" program in 1966.
Tracy Montminy, who completed early works as Elizabeth Tracy, (1911–1992) was an American artist and muralist. During the WPA's era, she painted murals in civic buildings, including murals in the library in Cambridge, Massachusetts; the fire and police building of Saugus, Massachusetts; the Milton, Massachusetts, post office; Medford, Massachusetts City Hall; the post office of Downers Grove, Illinois; and the post office in Kennebunkport, Maine, as well as others both in the U.S. and abroad. She was an art instructor at the University of Missouri and the American University of Beirut, continuing her own painting projects simultaneously with her teaching into the 1980s. Upon her death, she established a trust to create the Montminy Art Gallery in Columbia, Missouri.
Mary Boggs, also known as Mary Ross Boggs and in her later career as a writer as Mary Ross Townley, was an American muralist and textbook author. She participated in the art projects for the New Deal's Section of Painting and Sculpture creating the post office mural for Newton, Mississippi, and a collection of her watercolors was held at the Carville Marine Hospital.
Stuart Robert Purser was an American painter and academic. He was the chairman of the Art Department at his alma mater, Louisiana College, and at the University of Florida, and the author of two books.
Mary Earley (1900–1993) was an American painter born in St. Louis, Missouri. She is known for her New Deal era murals.
Virginia Snedeker Taylor (1909–2000) was an American painter. She is known for her New Deal era mural in the Audubon, Iowa Post Office as well as her illustrations for The New Yorker magazine.
Karl Rudolph Free was an American artist and museum curator, best known for his New Deal-era post office murals.