Olive Nuhfer

Last updated

Olive Harriett Nuhfer
Born
Olive Harriett Austin

(1901-08-16)August 16, 1901
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.
DiedOctober 8, 1996(1996-10-08) (aged 95)
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Known formuralist

Olive Nuhfer (1901-1996) was an American painter. She is best known for her New Deal era mural, The Daily Mail, in the Westerville, Ohio Post Office.

Biography

Nuhfer née Austin was born on August 16, 1901, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. [1] She married Leo R. Nuhfer on May 27, 1926 in Parkersburg, West Virginia. [2] She attended the University of Oklahoma [1] earning a bachelor's and master's degree. Nuhfer completed post graduate work at Carnegie Mellon University.

In addition to her own painting, she was an art instructor and involved with the Somerset County Artists' Association. In 1937 she painted the mural The Daily Mail for the Westerville, Ohio Post Office which was commissioned as a homage to mail carriers but created controversy when local residents complained that the image was not representative of their town. [3] The mural was funded by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts (TSFA). [4] Her 1937 portrait Electric Welder is in the Steidle Collection of American Industrial Art at Penn State College of Earth and Mineral Sciences. [1] Around 1959 she painted a portrait of Dwight D. Eisenhower, which is now in the collection of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Library-Museum. [5] In 1961, Nuhfer founded the Penn Arts Association in Penn Hills, Pennsylvania. [6]

In 1990 Nuhfer suffered a stroke, but after a three year hiatus, resumed painting with her other hand. [7] She died on October 8, 1996, in Pittsburgh. [1] [8]

In 2016, her painting Pittsburgh Landscape was included in the exhibition The Gift of Art: 100 Years of Art from the Pittsburgh Public Schools' Collection at the Heinz History Center. [9]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Electric Welder - Olive Harriette Nuhfer - 1937". Steidle Collection of American Industrial Art. Earth and Mineral Sciences Museum & Art Gallery. Archived from the original on June 4, 2024. Retrieved March 11, 2022.
  2. ↑ "Record Image". West Virginia Vital Research Records. Retrieved March 11, 2022.
  3. ↑ "Town displeased by Nuhfer mural". Pittsburgh Press. December 19, 1937. Retrieved October 31, 2025.
  4. ↑ "Post Office Mural - Westerville OH". The Living New Deal . Archived from the original on September 11, 2024. Retrieved March 11, 2022.
  5. ↑ "Dwight D. Eisenhower by Olive Harriett Nuhfer [1959]". National Portrait Gallery . Smithsonian Institution. Archived from the original on June 4, 2024. Retrieved March 11, 2022.
  6. ↑ Smith, Kevin M. (January 14, 1988). "Grants encourage arts group in Penn Hills". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette . Archived from the original on September 11, 2024. Retrieved March 11, 2022– via Google News Archive.
  7. ↑ Chute, Eleanor. "Stroke-impaired artist resumes painting using her left hand". The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. 11 August 1994. Retrieved October 31, 2025.
  8. ↑ "Latest Deaths". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette . October 12, 1996. pp. C-3. ProQuest   391748215 . Retrieved March 11, 2022.
  9. ↑ Thomas, M. (November 5, 2016). "Pittsburgh Public Schools display 'The Gift of Art' at Heinz History Center" . Pittsburgh Post-Gazette . Archived from the original on August 12, 2020. Retrieved March 11, 2022.
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