North Country

Commissioned to paint two murals illustrating the dramatically varied climates of the United States and the range of activities undertaken by the National Park Service, Gifford Beal chose to focus upon the terrain of Alaska and Hawaii. In North Country a frieze-like composition features a seven dog team sweeping across the entire painting, carrying a sled filled with provisions.

Gifford Beal was born in 1879 in New York City. Beginning at age 13, he studied with the accomplished American artists William Merritt Chase at the Shinnecock School of Art, and later at the Tenth Street Studio and the New York School of Art. Beal graduated from Princeton University in 1900, and then continued his training at the Art Students League with George Bridgman and Frank Vincent DuMond. Beal served as president of the Art Students League from 1914 to 1929. He later lived in Rockport, Maine, where he died in 1956. Under the Works Progress Administration, Beal was commissioned to paint murals for the U.S. Post offices in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and Crestline, Ohio. He exhibited at the 1915 Pan-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, the 1939 World’s Fair in New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago. The U.S. Treasury Department, Section of Fine Arts, commissioned Beal to paint these murals for the Department of the Interior.