Name Miriam McKinnie | ||
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Miriam McKinnie, aka Miriam McKinnie Hofmeier, was born in Evanston, Illinois on May 22, 1906, and died on October 22, 1987 in Berryville, Arkansas.
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Education
She attended the Minneapolis (MN) School of Fine Art and the Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, Missouri. She was a student of Anthony Angarola.
Mural commissions
Murals were produced from 1934 to 1943 in the United States through the Section of Painting and Sculpture, later called the Section of Fine Arts, of the Treasury Department. The murals were intended to boost the morale of the American people suffering from the effects of the Depression by depicting uplifting subjects. Murals were commissioned through competitions open to all artists in the United States. Almost 850 artists were commissioned to paint 1371 murals, most of which were installed in post offices, libraries, and other public buildings. 162 of the artists were women. The murals were funded as a part of the cost of the construction with 1% of the cost set aside for artistic enhancements.
Miriam McKinnie's mural work includes the oil on canvas mural titled Harvest in the Marshall, Illinois post office, commissioned by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts, and completed in 1938. McKinnie painted a WPA commissioned mural in 1940 titled The White Fawn in the United States post office in the Forest Park, Illinois. The Edwardsville, Illinois public library contains four untitled murals donated by Miriam McKinnie in 1958 after a fire had destroyed some of the library's interior.