The Inglewood Post Office is the result of a federal goal providing postal services to every American community.  The program built significant civic facilities with quality materials and dignified art treatments and underscored federal efforts to address the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Inglewood’s Post Office showcases the Treasury Relief Art Program. TRAP’s goals were to employ as many artisans as possible in as geographically diverse areas as possible, using diversely skilled workers to jumpstart the Great Depression economy.  Artists were commissioned to create artworks for the Post Offices, with a theme relevant to the location, a predecessor of today’s percent-for-art programs.

The interior of this Post Office features a suite of magnificent carved art panels. Archibald Garner’s Centinela Springs are carved mahogany panels installed inside the Inglewood post office at the Postmaster’s door. Garner depicts early California residents, native peoples, missionaries and settlers at water’s edge. With bowls, canteens and buckets they scoop water from Centinela Springs, a valued early source of fresh water in coastal Southern California. He is known for figurative relief panels and dimensional sculpture in wood, stone, and mosaic.

Inglewood historian Anne Cheek La Rose wrote, “Garner’s original design was larger than the …commission was awarding for the work. Rather than compromise his vision, Garner purchased the additional material cost out of his own pocket. Additionally, his studio was not large enough to house the panels as he worked, so the carving was done in his friend, Gordon Newell’s, studio.”

Garner’s works were created through the Treasury Section of the Fine Arts (TRAP). Similar to the Works Progress Administration, the Section was part of government’s efforts to provide work for all Americans throughout the Great Depression. The program was an early example of reserving some of the construction budget for acquiring art works for public buildings. When commissioned, artists were given guidelines for their selection of themes. Typically, the artists’ designs were inspired by the locale.

Date: 1935

Location
300 East Hillcrest Boulevard
Inglewood, California 90301