Marion Gilmore

Marion Gilmore,(1909-1984), artist and muralist, was a lifelong resident of Ottumwa, Iowa

Section of Fine Arts

Post office murals were executed by artists working for the Section of Fine Arts. Commonly known as “the Section,” it was established in 1934 and administered by the Procurement Division of the Treasury Department. Marion Gilmore won a commission to produce a post office mural for the town of Corning, Iowa. The Section’s main function was to select art of high quality to decorate public buildings if the funding was available. By providing decoration in public buildings, the art was made accessible to all people.[1][2]

Murals

Her mural entry, Band Concert won the federal-sponsored Forty-Eight States design competition of 1939 and depicted a summer band concert in the small, midwest community of Corning, Iowa. A local jury of concerned citizens, led by former Stone City faculty member Edward Rowan, demanded that Gilmore’s image only contain actual architecture and landmarks in the downtown district. Upon its completion, Rowan demanded that Gilmore remove two objects (a cannon and an obelisk) from the image; Gilmore made the changes to accommodate the WPA requirement. However, she also made other, minor landscaping changes, portraying the town in a sentimental light.[3] Considered a tremendous success by the local citizens, the post office mural was completed in 1941.
Gilmore continued to exhibit professionally, including at the Iowa Art Salon in 1938.

Among her many honors are several Iowa Art Salon awards and the winning commission for the Corydon, Iowa post office, entitled Volunteer Fire Department painted in 1942. Marion Gilmore pursued art studies at the Art Students League and the Phoenix Art Institute, where she focused on commercial art. At the latter, Gilmore studied from 1931-32 under Norman Rockwell and other popular artists.

Mion Hulse

Gilmore eventually moved to New York City, married, and after World War II, began using a variation of her married name (“Mion Hulse”), abandoning the use of her birth name for signed works. It is speculated that due to the then-art community’s reluctance to celebrate talented, female artists, Gilmore adopted a gender-neutral name for her later exhibitions.

References

  1. ↑ “Articles from EnRoute : Off The Wall: New Deal Post Office Murals” by Patricia Raynor.
  2. ↑ "Florida WPA Art". WPAmurals.com. Retrieved 16 December 2014.
  3. ↑ Marling, Karal A. (1982). Wall-to-Wall America : A Cultural History of Post Office Murals in the Great Depression (First ed.). University of Minnesota Press. pp. 95 to 104. ISBN 0816611165.