Background
Archie Musick was born January 19, 1902 in Kirksville, Missouri, to parents Levi Prince Musick and Zada (Goeghegan) Musick.
Archie Musick was born January 19, 1902 in Kirksville, Missouri, to parents Levi Prince Musick and Zada (Goeghegan) Musick.
He studied under Thomas Hart Benton, Stanton MacDonald-Wright, and Boardman Robinson. He attended Kirksville schools and later Northeast Missouri State Teachers College (now known as Truman State University.
Archie Musick was the brother of author and folklorist Ruth Ann Musick as well as the nephew of author John R. Musick. His first major mural, "Hard Rock Miners," (1934) (5”x14”) was funded by the Public Works of Art Project and may be seen in the City Auditorium in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where for many years he was the art instructor at the Cheyenne Mountain School. He was commissioned by the class of 1928 to paint the snow-covered ruins of Old Baldwin Hall, destroyed in a 1924 fire.
He described his first private mural commissions (well before the New Deal-funded ones) as "scenic pot-boilers on restaurant walls, (which) were happily destroyed by fire." He spent most of his career in Colorado, with a year (1946-1947) teaching at the University of Missouri and several years after that teaching at another Missouri university.
The post office murals were funded by the New Deal Section of Fine Art program The Red Cloud mural was painted in 1941 and the Manitou Springs one, "Hunters red and White," in 1942.
In the course of creating "Hunters Red and White," Archie developed the signature egg tempera/colored pencil technique that he used for smaller paintings throughout the rest of his life. His book, Musick Medley: Intimate Memories of a Rocky Mountain Art Colony, is a personal view of the art world of the Colorado SPrings region from the 1920s to the 1950s, including the Broadmoor Art Academy and Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center.
Many of the original ink board illustrations from these publications are within the archives of Fairmont State University"s West Virginia Folklife Center.
The murals are on exhibit for public viewing in the foyer of the Ruth Ann Musick Library on the main campus.