Existing comment:
Doris Lee
General Store and Post Office, 1938
Country Post, 1938
The US Post Office Department's 1896 introduction of Rural Free Delivery demonstrated the country's democratic ideals and provided a crucial link between urban and rural America.
In her depictions of country life during the Great Depression, Doris Lee includes elements of news, commerce, transportation, and the law, as well as affectionately familiar details of everyday life. In the mural on the left, she shows a 1930s general store, a cornerstone of the community, which served as a post office, market place, and communication hub. Inside the store, citizens retrieve mail, purchase sundries, and read the newspaper, while outside a gas pump alludes to the increased mobility of rural Americans. Country Post portrays an idealized rural family receiving a delivery of mail, as well as a shipment of farm tools. Absent are any indications of the Depression's chronically low crop prices, severe droughts, and dust storms. The slightly exaggerated, folksy style of Lee's figures, while praised by many, also provoked some strong criticism. Consequently, Section of Fine Arts administrators requested that Lee revise her initial sketched for the Post Office murals to reduce the caricature of the figures and to correct their proportions. In making these revisions, Lee accommodated the Section's preference for realism while continuing to experiment with more expressive forms outside her government commissions. |