Although only slightly older than other Depression Era muralists, Arthur Sinclair Covey was clearly a man from another era. His father was a Civil War veteran who became an itinerant farmer. The family moved from town to town, first in Herington, Kansas and then in El Dorado, Kansas. When Arthur was 16, they participated in the Cherokee Strip Land Run, a mad dash of some 100,000 people hoping to claim newly-available land for settlement. The Covey family were among the lucky ones, obtaining a claim near Red Rock, Oklahoma. (The name of the land run itself may not be familiar, but the names of would-be settlers who cheated on the September 16, 1893 starting date — the so-called "Sooners" — would be memorialized as the state's nickname.) While events like the land run made a life-long impression on Covey, the agrarian lifestyle was not one that appealed to him. He scraped together enough money to enroll at Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas. There his art teacher, Edith Andrus (later Edith Dunlevy) recognized his artistic talent — with the result that he resolved to become a professional artist. After graduating from Southwestern College he enrolled at the Art Institute of Chicago, studying with John H. Vanderpoel and graduating with honors in 1900. The next four years were spent studying in Europe, first at the Royal Academy in Munich, where he studied with Karl Marr, Frank Duveneck and Gari Melchers, and then for three years as an assistant to Frank Brangwyn. Brangwyn was a well-known muralist, whose American work includes murals in the Missouri State Capitol in Jefferson City. Inspired by Brangwyn, Covey was disappointed to find nothing but work as a commercial illustrator back in New York City. But he found a patron in Louise Caldwell Murdock with a commission for the Wichita Public Library. Covey's three-panel mural "The Spirit of Kansas" made his reputation. His favored style with industrial scenes and hard-working men was popular throughout the 1920s and 1930s, allowing Covey to continue with this type of work. While in London Covey had met and married the artist Mary Dorothea Sale. Four years after her death in 1917, Covey married Lois Lenski, an author and illustrator who became nationally famous for her children's books. The couple were to acquire homes in Harwinton, Connecticut and Tarpon Springs, Florida, between which they divided their time. Covey continued painting until his death, literally completing his final water color the day before he died.Victoria StationSponge Docks at Tarpon Springs
Critical Analysis
Covey had many mural commissions in the course of his career. It is fortunate that a number of his major works have survived. These include industrial scenes at the Bridgeport, Connecticut Post Office, scenes from the life of John Brown at the Torrington, Connecticut Post Office, his Wichita triptych, and murals on the "Dignity and Nobility of Men Who Work" at the Kohler Company in Wisconsin.
