Madill's post office priceless painting

Located in the lobby of the historic 1938 Madill Post Office is a mural that is irreplaceable and essentially priceless. The mural is called Prairie Fire and was painted by Ethel Magafan.

The present Madill Post Office was constructed during President Franklin D. Roosevelt'sNewDealEraand the Works Progress Administration (WPA). As part of the New Deal Era/WPA, the Roosevelt administration, created the Federal Treasury Section of Fine Painting and Sculpture, by order of Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr.

In 1938, the program was renamed the 'Section of Fine Arts.' Its purpose was “to secure for the Government the best art which this country is capable of producing, with merit as the only test”, to decorate federally owned structures such as the U.S. Department of Interior headquartersinWashington, D.C., and hundreds of post offices around the country.

The Section of Fine Arts recruited American artists through a system of anonymous competition. Bulletins announcing competitions weremailedouttoartistswho had requested to be placed on the Section’s mailing list, and the artists were given time “to study the problem and to prepare designs that are appropriate to the locality of the building and the tastes and interests of the public who will use that building.”

Artists were “encouraged to visit the community and discuss subject matter with leading citizens.” There was a requirement that artists have “experience and thorough professional equipment” and “beginners, art students, or others who are not professional painters or sculptors” were discouraged from competing.

However, not all the section’s art projects required competitions. Artists whose work was considered “exceptional” were sometimes “invited by the Section to submit designs for the decoration of a specific building withoutfurthercompetition”. Financial need played no role in the selection process.

As part of the executive branch reorganization that occurred in 1939, the Section of Fine Arts was transferred from the U.S. Treasury to the newly created Public Buildings Administration, a component of the Federal Works Agency, effective July 1, 1939.

Ethel was born in Chicago in 1919. She and her twin sister, Jenne eventually began to study art while in high school in Colorado.

While working at a department store in Colorado Springs, Jenne won the $90 Carter Memorial Art Scholarship. Jenne shared it with Ethel so that both could enroll in the Broadmoor Art Academy (now the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center) where they studied under famous painter and architect Frank Mechau.

When the scholarship money ran out after two months, Mechau hired them as his assistants where they helped him with his federal government mural commissions. Mechau trained Ethel and her sister in the complex process of mural painting while they studied at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, teaching them the compositional techniques of the European Renaissance masters.

This also involved library research for historical accuracy, small scale drawing, and the hand-making of paints and other supplies. Ethel recalled that their teacher “was a lovely man but he was a hard worker. He drove us. There was no fooling around.”

Ethel's apprenticeship with Mechau prepared her to win four national government competitions, beginning at age twenty-two, for large murals in U.S. post offices: Threshing – Auburn, Nebraska (1938), Cotton Pickers – Wynne, Arkansas (1940), Prairie Fire – Madill, Oklahoma (1940), and The HorseCorral–SouthDenver, Colorado (1942).

In preparation for their commissions Ethel and her sister made trips around the country to pending mural locations, driving their beatup station wagon, dressed in jeans and cowboy boots with art supplies and dogs in tow. Ethel and Jenne visited Madill in 1940 where they spent an unknown amount of time just getting to know the people, the place, and the environment.

On January 26, 1941, Ethel returned to Madill to hang her mural on the west wall of the post office lobby. The mural measures 12 feet by four feet. It depicts Oklahoma pioneers with their families in covered wagons, with their horses and cattle trying to escape a prairie fire. According to the January 23, 1941, issue of the Madill Record, “MissMagafansaidthat she designed it (the mural) after reading considerable Oklahoma history.”

In the 1940s, Ethel and her sister successfully made theimportanttransitionfrom government patronage to careers as independent artists. Ethel became distinguished forhermodernistlandscapes. Ethel then became a permanent resident of Woodstock, New York with her artist husband Bruce Currie.

Over the years, Ethel was awarded many prestigious awards and accolades. Her many awards include, among others, the Stacey Scholarship (1947); Tiffany Fellowship (1949); Fulbright Grant (1951-52, in Greece with her husband); Tiffany Fellowship (1949); Benjamin Altman Landscape Prize, National Academy of Design (1955); Medal of Honor, Audubon, Artists (1962); Henry Ward Granger Fund Purchase Award, National Academy of Design (1964); Childe Hassam Fund Purchase Award, American Academy of Arts and Letters (1970); Silver Medal, Audubon Artists (1983); ChampionInternationalCorporation Award, Silvermine Guild, New Canaan, Connecticut (1984); John Taylor Award, Woodstock Artists Association,Woodstock,New York (1985); Harrison Cady Award,AmericanWatercolor Society (1987); Grumbacher GoldMedal,AudubonArtists (1990).

Ethel passed away in Woodstock, NY in 1993.

Ethel’s mural in Madill is a one-of-a-kind, work of art. The mural is painted with tempura that was made with egg yolks and pigments, all mixed by Ethel herself. This is a mural that should be cherished by all the residents of Madill, Marshall County and Oklahoma.

It is irreplaceable. Stop by the post office and view this masterpiece.

To learn more about the history of Marshall County, visittheMuseumofSouthern Oklahoma, 400 W. Overton St. Madill, Okla.