During the 1930s, the Works Project Administration paid many artists to paint portraits of famous people in American history as well as large murals depicting historic scenes. Their artwork was to hang in public buildings, schools, museums, and other buildings. Edward Riegel was one of those artists. Riegel and Charles Greil painted a mural of Abraham Lincoln standing with four other men on a balcony of the Old American Hotel in Buffalo which still hangs in the Buffalo History Museum. With Willis Hykes, Riegel co-painted a large mural called Safari on glazed bricks on the wall of the Buffalo Zoo's feline house.
See: Marlene Park & Gerald E. Markowitz, New Deal for Art: The Government Art Projects of the 1930s with Examples from New York City & State. (Hamilton, NY: Gallery Association of New York State, Inc., 1977): 134.
Buffalo Zoological Gardens, Delaware Park, Feline House interior. (illustrated)
Willis Hykes and Edward Riegel, Safari, paint on glazed bricks, 8’7” x 15’4”, 1940, WPA/FAP