Dale Nichols (1904 - 1995)

RFD #1, 1937, oil on canvas, signed and dated lower right, titled verso, 24 x 30 inches

$75,000

Iowa had Grant Wood. Missouri had Thomas Hart Benton. Kansas had John Steuart Curry. And, Nebraska had Dale Nichols. Although not as well known as the big three regionalists who captured America’s artistic attention during the 1930s, Dale Nichols was an important chronicler of his home state as well as the broader Midwest. Stylistically, Nichols is known for his spare, idealized portrayals of Nebraska farms—his simplified compositions often feature red barns, sweeping snowscapes, and long shadows—evoking both memory and myth. His palette and forms convey serenity and nostalgia, capturing Midwestern “spirit” with restraint and clarity.

RFD #1 includes many aspects of Nichols' regionalist iconography, but it goes beyond the typical work through its inclusion of an automobile driven by a mail carrier. RFD stands for Rural Free Delivery. a transformative program initiated by the United States Post Office Department (now USPS) to deliver mail directly to rural farm families. Before RFD, rural residents had to travel long distances to retrieve their mail from post offices or pay private carriers. The introduction of RFD in the Progressive Era in the late 19th century marked a major expansion of federal services into rural America, with wide-ranging economic, social, and political consequences. After starting in 1896 with tests in West Virginia, Tennessee and Illinois, Rural Free Delivery expanded nationwide in 1902, just two years before Nichols birth, and by 1913, it included parcel service, which allowed farmers and rural residents to receive packages and goods by mail, transforming rural consumer access to manufactured products and helping grow businesses like Sears, Roebuck & Co. RFD integrated rural Americans more fully into the national economy, reduced isolation, boosted rural literacy (through access to newspapers and books), and supported the growth of mail-order businesses.

During the New Deal at the height of Nichols' artistic practice, RFD played a crucial role in the federal government’s broader efforts to modernize rural America, alleviate poverty, and integrate isolated communities into the national economy and culture. While RFD was already well established by the 1930s, the New Deal significantly expanded and transformed its scope and infrastructure, aligning it with President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s vision of a more equitable and connected nation. RFD was critical in delivering New Deal information—farmers and rural families received government bulletins, agricultural extension pamphlets, Works Progress Administration (WPA) project announcements, and materials about programs like the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). The New Deal emphasized infrastructure investment, and rural roads—essential for mail carriers. Mail routes provided employment for thousands of postal workers and indirectly stimulated road construction and vehicle maintenance jobs, especially in underserved areas. RFD also helped implement the New Deal’s goal of fostering a more unified American identity. By linking remote communities to the federal government and national media, it reduced regional disparities and strengthened allegiance to federal institutions.

Nichols would have been well aware of the positive impacts of Rural Free Delivery as depicted in the present work. Born in the tiny town of David, Nebraska, Nichols came from a loving family who supported his artistic ambitions as much as they expected him to work hard on the family farm for much of the first twenty years of his life. In 1924, Nichols decamped to Chicago and spent a few months at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts before deciding that real world illustration and graphic arts experience would serve him well. Nichols worked as a commercial artist for fifteen years as his fine art career advanced. In 1934, his painting, End of the Hunt, won the William Randolph Hearst Prize at the Chicago Art Institute and the painting was later purchased by, and remains in the collection of, the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The following year Nichols published his first book, Philosophy of Esthetics, which began to set forth the design principles that Nichols would follow through much of his career.

In addition to painting his native Midwest, Nichols painted in Alaska, Arizona, and later in Mexico and Central America. Nichols exhibited extensively during the 1930s and 1940s, including at New York’s prominent MacBeth Gallery. In 1939 and 1940, Nichols served as artist-in-residence at the University of Illinois. He started working as an illustrator for Encyclopedia Britannica in 1943 and in 1945, he became its Art Director. Although Nichols painted many scenes of Central America, throughout his career, he often returned to the Midwestern landscape for inspiration, working and reworking compositions from his younger days. Nichols works are in the collections of many American institutions, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Dayton Art Institute, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Joslyn Museum, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and the Williams College Art Museum, among many others. He is listed in Who Was Who in American Art and all other standard references.