Photo CreditCarol M. Highsmith Photography

Writing the Family Letter

Year1939

Classification painting

Medium oil on canvas

Dimensions75 x 134 in. (190.5 x 340.4 cm)

Credits Commissioned through the Section of Fine Arts, 1934 - 1943
Fine Arts Collection
U.S. General Services Administration

Quiet and spare, like the easel paintings for which Brook was known, Writing the Family Letter depicts a woman and three children at home. Each figure looks away from the others, creating a sense of separation that belies their close quarters. The girl at the table writes a letter, presumably meant for the young man, shown seated in the mural on the right, who has left the family to join the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Men in the CCC were required to be unmarried and between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, so the girl at the table likely writes to her brother. CCC members came from families already taking advantage of local relief efforts through the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA); therefore, the patriarch of the family was probably also out working to support his wife and children. Concern for the family's father and brother, compounded by the stresses of economic hardship, may explain the somber tone of the scene. In one of Brook's drawings for this mural, the mother appears calm, her back to the viewer and her eyes gazing lovingly at the baby. The final composition, with the mother appearing worn and distant, conveys the sacrifices and hard work that were essential to recovering from the Great Depression. On the wall above the girl at her desk is a copy of The Angelus, a famous nineteenth-century painting by French artist Jean-François Millet, which shows a farm couple pausing from their work for evening prayers.