Seneca Post Office

Seneca Post Office

Mural

"Men and Wheat"

1940

Artist

Joe Jones: 

1909-1963

Largely self-taught, he managed to achieve national recognition as an important artist of the American Scene. His early paintings of wheat fields and wheat farming in his native Midwest are highly esteemed within the regionalist genre. A political activist as well as a painter, Jones organized art classes for unemployed youngsters, which he held in the old St. Louis courthouse in 1934. As a member of the John Reed Club, Jones was loudly criticized for his social concerns and political views. He left St. Louis in 1935 to pursue his art career in New York. In 1937 he was awarded a prestigious Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship.

Many of Jones's paintings and prints from this era (including five large murals) were commissioned by the government supported Works Progress Administration. Also, in 1937, he was awarded the prestigious Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship and his art was included in important exhibitions at the Carnegie Institute. In World War Two, Jones worked as a war artist for Life Magazine.