Dunbar Beck

Dunbar Beck: 1903-1986
Master draftsman and painter, Beck painted several murals for the 1939-40 World's Fair in New York. It's too bad these photos are not in color as Beck was also an amazing colorist. I have not been able to identify the location/building on which his murals "Recreation" and "Sleep" were located. However the third mural "Genius of Business Administration" was located (outside?) along the courtyard wall of the Business Systems and Insurance Building.
Beck designed the central six-armed figure to represent, in his opinion, how many arms the modern office worker would need to handle all of his duties if it were not for the assistance of modern office machinery.
One of the three photos shows an original study for the mural in whole.
This mural was 75ft long and 19ft tall. Interestingly, it was executed in the same new "rubber based" paint that was used on a number of murals at the NY 39-40 Fair. The use of this early latex/acrylic type paint for these murals were among the first known artworks created with this then new paint...which to me makes these works even more exciting and interesting!
This new paint was created in part by the artist Dominico Mortellito. He himself also created murals for the fair--and many artists at the fair used his paint for the creation of their murals. I will cover more about Mortellito in a future post.
Somewhere around 110 murals were commissioned for the fair. Amazing!
Photos: NYPL