"Design for Mural, Paw Paw, Michigan Post
Office"
By Carlos Lopez for the Treasury Department Section of Fine Arts, ca.
1940
Watercolor over pencil on paper
9 1/2" x 10"
National Archives and Records Administration, Records of the Public Buildings
Service
Post Office Mural Designs: Paw Paw,
Michigan Among the New Deal's most familiar legacies are
the hundreds of murals painted on the walls of post offices throughout
the United States. Most of the post office murals were commissioned by
the Treasury Department's Section of Fine Arts through national and regional
competitions to which artists submitted their designs. As their designs
progressed, winning artists were required to send sketches to the section.
Carlos Lopez dispatched this illustration to Washington, DC, for approval.
It would eventually become his mural, Bounty, which still decorates
the lobby of the Paw Paw, Michigan, post office.