Ethel Magafan

Ethel Magafan
Ethel Magafan at Palisades Reservoir, Minidoka Project, Idaho
Born	August 10, 1916 Chicago, Illinois
Died	April 24, 1993 (aged 76) Woodstock, New York
Nationality	American
Education	Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center
Notable work	Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans, January 8, 1814 (1943) Cotton Pickers (1940) Prairie Fire (1941) The Horse Corral (1942)
Style	mural
Website	http://www.magafanmuralproject.com

Ethel Magafan (August 10, 1916 – April 24, 1993) was an American painter and muralist.

Early life

Magafan was born in Chicago to Greek parents who had recently immigrated to the U.S. The family soon relocated to Colorado Springs, Colorado, and Magafan's artistic training occurred at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center under the tutelage of Peppino Mangravite, Boardman Robinson and Frank Mechau, who hired Magafan and her identical twin sister, Jenne Magafan, to assist on mural projects. In 1937, Ethel won the commission to paint a mural in the U.S. post office in Auburn, Nebraska, making her the youngest recipient of such a commission. It would be the first of seven government-sponsored commissions for the artist.^[1]

Murals

Under President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, several programs were created to employ Americans during the Great Depression. The Magafan twins worked under the New Deal's Section of Painting and Sculpture, a program that hired thousands of artists to paint murals in public spaces, particularly post offices.^[2] Ethel and her twin sister, Jenne Magafan, became widely known for their murals painted during the Great Depression. Ethel received her first of seven Government commissions when she was commissioned to produce a painting for the United States post office in Auburn, Nebraska, titled Threshing.^[3] Other murals commissioned by the US Government hang in the United States Senate Chamber, the Social Security Building and the Recorder Deeds Building in Washington, D.C., and in post offices in Wynne, Arkansas, titled Cotton Pickers in 1940; in Madill, Oklahoma, titled Prairie Fire in 1941; and Englewood, Colorado, titled The Horse Corral in 1942.^[4] Her final mural, entitled Grant in the Wilderness, was installed in 1979 in the Chancellorsville Visitor Center at the Fredericksburg National Memorial Military Park in Virginia,^[5]

She was a member of the National Academy of Design.^[6]

Later Life

In 1951 Ethel won a Fulbright Scholarship to Greece where she and her husband, Bruce Currie, spent 1951-52.^[7]

Death

Magafan died April 24, 1993, in Woodstock, New York, at the age of 76.^[5]

Awards

Her many awards include, among others:^[7]

• Stacey Scholarship (1947)
• Tiffany Fellowship (1949)
• Fulbright Grant (1951-52)
• 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)
• Champion International Corporation Award, Silvermine Guild, New Canaan, Connecticut (1984)
• John Taylor Award, Woodstock Artists Association, Woodstock, New York (1985)
• Harrison Cady Award, American Watercolor Society (1987)
• Grumbacher Gold Medal, Audubon Artists (1990)

References

• Biography Archived 2011-06-13 at the Wayback Machine

 This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the Bureau of Reclamation.

This page was last edited on 22 April 2024, at 20:10