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Post Office mural
getting a facelift
October 23, 1976
By Julie Tripp
Hard times brought Golden some good
luck.
Between 1933 and 1943, as many as
100,000 pieces of art were created by the Works
Project Administration (WPA) in post offices and
federal buildings throughout the depressed nation.
Many of the art works took the form of murals, and
many of the artists who worked for the WPA during
the Depression became famous.
Two Golden Murals
Two of these murals are in Golden. One
occupies part of the west wall at the post office on
12th Street, and the other is at the top of the
stairs in the main hall of Golden Junior High at
10th and Washington.
Marion Iserman, a Denver artist who has
been in the painting restoration business for about
five years, is currently in the middle of his 59th
restoring job. He's cleaning and touching up the
mural at the post office.
Under commission by the government's
General Services Administration, Marion will soon
undertake an even bigger job--finding and cataloging
the works of art done by the WPA in the five-state
area of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico, and
Arizona.
"It all started," says Marion, "when
Frank Mechau's widow started campaigning to have his
mural restored. Mechau's canvas was dirty and
frayed, with foot-long slashes and punched holes.
Restoring made such a difference to that painting
the GSA asked me to do another and then another.
Marion has been working on the mural at
the post office since Monday. He still has to do
more touching up, then he'll let it dry and add a
coat of protective varnish.
Road Building Scene
The mural was done in the thirties by
Kenneth Evett and depicts a road building scene west
of Golden. It is just before lunch, and some of the
workmen are still busy, while others have paused for
a smoke or to talk to members of the family who have
come to see the progress of the project.
The mural is about six by twelve feet
and is done in oil on canvas.
"I don't know what ever became of the
artist," says Marion, "but the composition and color
are good. The whole thing is excellent."
"The artist (Evett) studied under Thomas
Hart Benton and Boardman Robinson. It's a very nice
piece of work."
In return for their work, the WPA
artists were granted one per cent of the cost of the
whole building. It usually amounted to about $350 to
$400 per painting, says Marion, who worked for the
WPA himself for three months during the Depression,
producing some historical paintings of Kansas.
Something Special
Though Marion considers the post office
mural to be of good quality, he really gets excited
when speaking about the mural at the Junior High. It
shows a man panning gold in a stream with some
pioneer folk looking on.
"The mural was done by Gerald Cassidy,"
says Marion, "one of the principal artists in the
Taos area. He has painted murals for the post office
in Santa Fe."
"That is a very valuable piece of work.
I've seen small paintings of his that have sold for
$5,000."
"What do you suppose the mural is worth
today?" he was asked.
"A minimum of $25,000," said Marion.
"But it's in bad shape. It's dirty, and chipped in
places. It needs restoring badly."
Needs Restoration
Marion wants to restore the painting at
the Junior High before it falls into really bad
disrepair. "That mural is something the whole city
should be proud of," he says.
Last year, Marion talked to the
principal at the school about doing the restoring.
He thought maybe the students could earn the $450
needed to do the job.
So far this year, nothing has been done
to get the project started, and the mural still
waits for its face-lifting.
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