These four bas relief sculptures by Edmond R. Amateis, on a side wall of the William Penn Annex of the Philadelphia Post Office were one of the gifts we still have from the New Deal’s art programs.
They were commissioned by the Fine Arts Section of the Treasury Department under a program to provide employment for working artists and were installed in 1941. These reliefs were by Edmond R. Amateis.
As a group, their title is “Mail Delivery – North, South, East, West.” I wish I had taken a little more time to frame them properly; so many people and trucks were passing I was forced to take them from an angle.
Incidentally, if you’re interested in spotting New Deal art and architecture and other projects across the country, you’ve got a friend at Living New Deal, which has catalogued 16,529 sites and counting. They’ve also published New Deal maps of New York, San Francisco and Washington, DC.
