• Source: Jenne Magafan

Jenne Magafan (1916-1952) was an American painter and muralist. During her short-lived career, she became a successful mural painter in the 1930s and early 1940s. She gained national prominence for her work in the New Deal art program. Her twin sister Ethel Magafan was also a muralist.
Her 1941 mural Cowboy Dance is located in the Anson, Texas, post office. Her work is also included in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art and the Carnegie Museum of Art.
She died of a brain aneurysm in 1952, aged 36, at Albany Hospital.




Early life and education


Magafan, and her identical twin sister, Ethel Magafan, were born in Chicago, Illinois. Due to health concerns with their father, the family moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado, and then to Denver, Colorado.
Both Jenne and Ethel attended East High School in Denver. When in high school, the Magafan twins impressed artist Frank Mechau, and their mentor and art teacher, Helen Perry, paid for their sessions with Mechau, in hopes the twins would succeed artistically.
Jenne and Ethel were invited by Frank Mechau to apprentice with him at his Redstone studio in Redstone, Colorado. In 1936, Jenne was awarded the Carter Memorial Art Scholarship and shared it with her sister so they could both attend the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, formally the Broadmoor Art Academy, in Colorado Springs. Mechau then hired them as assistants, and they subsequently entered into careers as muralists, working at first with Mechau and then with Italian-American Modernist painter, Peppino Mangravite, and Boardman Robinson. Mechau encouraged the two to enter competitions sponsored by the U.S. Treasury Department's Section of Fine Arts. The sisters painted Works Progress Administration (WPA), federal government commissioned, murals in midwestern and western states, some as the sole artist and others as Mechau's assistants.




Career


In 1939, Jenne was awarded her first commission for a mural at the Albion, Nebraska, Post Office. This would be the first of seven commissions. Jenne was awarded five mural commissions for various United States post offices and other government buildings from 1937 to 1943.
Jenne assisted Mechau on several of these commissions. For the Glenwood Springs Post Office, the two artists and another assistant, Edward Chavez, painted Wild Horse Race in 1937. That same year, also for Glenwood Springs, Jenne and Edward painted Decorative Map. The three artists also collaborated on Indian Fight and The Corral for the Colorado Springs Post Office, located in Building 41 of the Denver Federal Center. Jenne also painted murals for post offices in Anson, Texas, and Helper, Utah.
She collaborated with her sister Ethel on a mural for the Social Security Building (now the Department of Health, Education and Welfare) in c. 1942 in Washington, D.C.
Meeting the artists Doris Lee and Arnold Blanch in Los Angeles, the twins learned of the art colony in Woodstock, New York, and traveled there in 1945. That same year, their work was exhibited at the Los Angeles Museum of Art and the National Academy of Design.




Later Years


After World War II, Jenne, her husband, Edward Chavez, and her sister, Ethel, relocated to the art colony in Woodstock, New York, where they remained the rest of their lives.
Jenne received a Tiffany Foundation Fellowship (1949, 1950) and in 1951-1952 she painted in Italy. She died of a brain aneurysm in 1952, aged 36, at Albany Hospital.




Legacy


Examples of her work are in many venues, including the Grafton Street Junior High School, Worcester, Massachusetts; Woodstock Artist’s Association, New York; and others. Magafan showed work primarily at the Ganso Gallery, New York City; at her memorial exhibition at the Ganso Gallery, homage was paid by her fellow artists, including Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Peppino Mangravite, Fletcher Martin, and Eugene Speicher.
She had solo exhibitions at the Denver Art Museum and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and participated in group exhibitions at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Denver Art Museum, Art Institute of Chicago, Los Angeles Museum of Art and Claremont College.




Works


Some of the non-mural paintings by Magafan are:

Church in Leadville (Colorado) 1938
Western Town (mural study, Helper, Utah Post Office) ca. 1939-1943
Cowboy Dance (mural study, Anson Texas Post Office), 1941
Cornstalks, 1955




Awards


Some of the awards Magafan received are:

State of Colorado Arts and Humanities Award
1949-50 – Tiffany Foundation Fellowship
1971: State of Colorado Arts and Humanities Award
Honored by Historic Denver as part of the Colorado 100.




Commissions


Some of the commissioned works by Magafan not discussed above are:

Ceiling in drawing room, commissioned by Mrs. Gerald Hughes, Denver, 1936
History of Costume (five murals), Neusteter's, Denver, 1937
Mural room and ranch bar, Albany Hotel, Denver, 1937
WPA mural, Cattle Round-up, US Treasury Department, Eureka, Kansas, 1938
Land Rush, Treasury Department, Sayre, Oklahoma, 1940.




Exhibitions


Source:

1934, 1935, 1938 to 1942 – Denver Art Museum, Colorado
1930-49 - International Watercolors, Art Institute of Chicago
1940 – Contemporary Arts, New York City
1940 – Utah Arts Center, Salt Lake City
1944 – Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California
1944 – Raymond & Raymond Gallery, Los Angeles, California
1944 – Scripps College, Claremont, California
1950 – Ganso Gallery, New York City
Contemporary American Painting, University of Illinois, 1952
1952 – Woodstock Artists Association, New York, Memorial Exhibition
1954 – Albany Institute of History and Art, New York, Memorial Exhibition
Artists West of the Mississippi, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, 1965
73rd Western Anninversary, Denver Art Museum, 1971
1975 – Long Island University, New York, Retrospective Exhibition
1975 – Ulster County Community College, Stone Ridge, New York, Retrospective Exhibition
1976 – Rome Art and Community Center, New York, Retrospective Exhibition




Works Held


Among the collections that hold her works are:

Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art, Colorado
Colby College Museum of Art, Maine
The John H. Vanderpoel Art Association, Illinois.




References

Kata Kunci Pencarian:

• Jenne Magafan
• Ethel Magafan
• United States Post Office-Helper Main
• United States Post Office (Albion, Nebraska)
• List of United States post office murals
• Edward Chavez (artist)
• United States post office murals
• List of New Deal murals
• National Register of Historic Places listings in Nebraska
• Treasury Relief Art Project