Stodgy university presses, in these hard economic times, have begun to produce books that have a broad appeal to scholars and casual readers alike, and The Texas Post Office Murals is a splendid example of the genre. Beautifully designed and printed, mostly in vivid color, Parisi\u27s book becomes both a superb tourist\u27s guide to 1930s art in Texas and a primary research document for students of American art and culture. Given the size of the state of Texas, he has also performed a valuable service by saving all of us a lot of dusty mileage along blue highways

Marling, Karal Ann

English

DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska

University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for 2004 Book Review: The Texas Post Office Murals: Art for the People Karal Ann Marling University of Minnesota Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly  Part of the Other International and Area Studies Commons Marling, Karal Ann, "Book Review: The Texas Post Office Murals: Art for the People" (2004). Great Plains Quarterly. 234. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/234 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. 306 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 2004 The Texas Post Office Murals: Art for the People. By Philip Parisi. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2004. x + 181 pp. Map, pho-tographs, illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $50.00. Stodgy university presses, in these hard eco-nomic times, have begun to produce books that have a broad appeal to scholars and ca-sual readers alike, and The Texas Post Office Murals is a splendid example of the genre. Beautifully designed and printed, mostly in vivid color, Parisi's book becomes both a su-perb tourist's guide to 1930s art in Texas and a primary research document for students of American art and culture. Given the size of the state of Texas, he has also performed a valuable service by saving all of us a lot of dusty mileage along blue highways. Wisely, the author has limited his history of how the federal government came to send mural painters into the boondocks in the depths of the Great Depression to a few pithy pages. The literature on the field is already extensive, especially in the areas of aesthetics and the bureaucratic structure of the Treasury Department agency charged with the post of-fice and courthouse mural program. Instead, Parisi gets right down to grassroots business: where are such murals to be found in Texas? Who painted them? What has happened to the pictures over the years since? Did local people like them? Do they like 'em still today? And, most important perhaps, what are the stories being told, the symbols on display, the issues important to dwellers on the Texas Plains during hard times? This is grassroots history with its boots on-local, fine-grained, and endlessly fascinating. Take, for example, Parisi's deconstruction of the surreal, almost savage Stampede mural of 1940 by noted Western artist Tom Lea in the Odessa Post Office. Lea, he tells us, took the scene of maddened longhorns poised against a blackened sky from the traditional cowboy ballad "Little Joe the Wrangler." The ranch hand pitching to his death in the fore-ground comes from the song, as do the awful red eyes of the steers, the flashes of lightning, and the cruel horns of the cattle. It was rare for federal murals to express strong emotion, let alone outright terror, but we learn that Lea's work is still highly regarded in Odessa today, where it has been protected and re-stored in a new postal facility. Even the most peaceful scene-the town-scape in the Ranger, Texas, Post Office, from 1939-has a story to tell. The artist found Ranger a virtual ghost town but gave hope to the former boomtown with a picture of the clean, prosperous place it could once again become. Hope on the wall, for a mere $880 (the artist's unprincely fee)! Delight for the reader, for only $50! KARAL ANN MARLING Departments of Art History and American Studies University of Minnesota, Twin Cities BOOK REVIEWS 307 

Book Review: The Texas Post Office Murals: Art for the People

UNL | Libraries

University of Nebraska - Lincoln 
DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln 
Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for 
2004 
Book Review: The Texas Post Office Murals: Art for the People 
Karal Ann Marling 
University of Minnesota 
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly 
 Part of the Other International and Area Studies Commons 
Marling, Karal Ann, "Book Review: The Texas Post Office Murals: Art for the People" (2004). Great Plains 
Quarterly. 234. 
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/234 
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at 
DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an 
authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. 
306 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 2004 
The Texas Post Office Murals: Art for the People. 
By Philip Parisi. College Station: Texas A&M 
University Press, 2004. x + 181 pp. Map, pho-
tographs, illustrations, notes, bibliography, 
index. $50.00. 
Stodgy university presses, in these hard eco-
nomic times, have begun to produce books 
that have a broad appeal to scholars and ca-
sual readers alike, and The Texas Post Office 
Murals is a splendid example of the genre. 
Beautifully designed and printed, mostly in 
vivid color, Parisi's book becomes both a su-
perb tourist's guide to 1930s art in Texas and 
a primary research document for students of 
American art and culture. Given the size of 
the state of Texas, he has also performed a 
valuable service by saving all of us a lot of 
dusty mileage along blue highways. 
Wisely, the author has limited his history 
of how the federal government came to send 
mural painters into the boondocks in the 
depths of the Great Depression to a few pithy 
pages. The literature on the field is already 
extensive, especially in the areas of aesthetics 
and the bureaucratic structure of the Treasury 
Department agency charged with the post of-
fice and courthouse mural program. Instead, 
Parisi gets right down to grassroots business: 
where are such murals to be found in Texas? 
Who painted them? What has happened to 
the pictures over the years since? Did local 
people like them? Do they like 'em still today? 
And, most important perhaps, what are the 
stories being told, the symbols on display, the 
issues important to dwellers on the Texas 
Plains during hard times? This is grassroots 
history with its boots on-local, fine-grained, 
and endlessly fascinating. 
Take, for example, Parisi's deconstruction 
of the surreal, almost savage Stampede mural 
of 1940 by noted Western artist Tom Lea in 
the Odessa Post Office. Lea, he tells us, took 
the scene of maddened longhorns poised 
against a blackened sky from the traditional 
cowboy ballad "Little Joe the Wrangler." The 
ranch hand pitching to his death in the fore-
ground comes from the song, as do the awful 
red eyes of the steers, the flashes of lightning, 
and the cruel horns of the cattle. It was rare 
for federal murals to express strong emotion, 
let alone outright terror, but we learn that 
Lea's work is still highly regarded in Odessa 
today, where it has been protected and re-
stored in a new postal facility. 
Even the most peaceful scene-the town-
scape in the Ranger, Texas, Post Office, from 
1939-has a story to tell. The artist found 
Ranger a virtual ghost town but gave hope to 
the former boomtown with a picture of the 
clean, prosperous place it could once again 
become. Hope on the wall, for a mere $880 
(the artist's unprincely fee)! Delight for the 
reader, for only $50! 
KARAL ANN MARLING 
Departments of Art History and 
American Studies 
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities 
BOOK REVIEWS 307 


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