Above the mantle in the Governor’s Suite Library is a mural known as The State. The State features the head of a woman who is wearing a shawl or hood. She is surrounded by a wreath and a banner above her read’s Nebraska’s motto: Equality Before the Law. In the 1928 pamphlet for the opening reception of the Governor’s Suite, the wreath is “suggestive of prosperity and riches”
The Governor’s Suite was the first portion of the Capitol that was finished. It officially opened to the public on January 1, 1928.
About Augustus Vincent Tack
Augustus Vincent Tack was born in 1870 in Pittsburg, PA. He studied art at St. Francis Xavier College and the Art Students League of New York. Tack was an exhibition artist and his work was frequently displayed at prominent galleries in New York.
In 1923, Bertram Goodhue asked Tack to plan and execute a program for the governor’s suite in the Nebraska State Capitol. The murals were officially installed in 1927 and the Governor’s Suite was opened to the public on January 1, 1928.
