A
stylized horse is depicted grazing in an abstract landscape. Most
likely, the location is Woodstock, New York, where the artist lived.
Signed Lower Right; Framed; Note: titled and signed on verso.

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

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 twin
sister, Jenne, to assist on mural projects. In 1937, aEthel 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.
Murals
"Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans, January 8, 1814" E. Magafan, 1943

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. 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.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.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,

She was a member of the National Academy of Design.

Magafan died April 24, 1993, in Woodstock, New York, at the age of 76.
References