by Shannon Butler Have you ever been inside some of our local historic post offices and admired the murals? Those paintings are there thanks to the vision of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and some of his New Deal programs including the Public Works of Art program (PWAP) which was established in 1933 and  The Treasury Section of Painting and Sculpture (later known as the Section of Fine Arts), commonly known as the Section. The plan was to put America’s great artists to work and for one local artist, these programs made his work famous (at least to us locals). Olin Dows was born right here in the Hudson Valley at Irvington-on-Hudson in 1904. His family moved to Rhinebeck when he was four years old. His father, Tracy Dows had married Alice Olin whose Livingston wealth allowed them to build a lovely estate which became known as Foxhollow Farm. When Olin was 12, he attended St. Mark’s School in Southboro MA where he figured out at an early age that he wanted to be a painter. He stated that his inspirations included great artists of the past as well as more modern minds, which included everything from Michelangelo to Maxfield Parrish. As a [...]