Wealth of art treasures discovered - and now preserved - in Chicago schools

1/28/03 -- Eight years ago, when Flora Doody, a special education teacher in Chicago, discovered a deteriorating mural on the wall of Lane Technical High School in Chicago, she thought it ought to be preserved.

She contacted representatives from the Chicago Conservation Center, who were astounded by what they saw and put into motion a major effort to discover and preserve the lost artworks in Chicago public schools.

They eventually found 437 murals painted during the first half of the 20th century in 68 public schools. Many had been hidden behind layers of paint and dirt or neglected in storage rooms.

Most of them have now been restored. About 50 had been destroyed, thrown away, or damaged beyond repair.

Heather Becker, vice president of the Chicago Conservation Center, calls the effort to restore these lost works of art "the largest mural preservation project in American history." Becker's new book on the project, Art of the People, documents the eight-year project and describes the history of mural making in the United States.

Many of the murals were commissioned by the federal Works Progress Administration (WPA), a large-scale, job-creation project launched by President Franklin Roosevelt during the Depression.

Other murals were created during the Progressive Era in the early decades of the last century as part of an effort promoted by the Art Institute of Chicago to support murals in public buildings. The oldest mural dates from 1904.

Among the most notable, Becker says, are an abstract mural by Rudolph Weisenborn installed in 1936 at Nettelhorst Elementary School and a 1940 mural of images of Chicago by Lucile Ward at Sawyer Elementary School.

Other murals depict landscapes, steel mills and factories, explorers, the history of writing, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, Washington crossing the Delaware, and other scenes from history and literature.

In most cases, the murals were neglected because school officials didn't know what they had, Becker says. Many had been whitewashed or covered up during renovations. Others had been damaged from having posters and flyers nailed to them over the years.

A 54-foot-long fresco painted in 1938-40 by Edward Millman depicting outstanding American women in the social realism style, was whitewashed for political reasons. It was painted over only a year after it was completed because "it was misery laden, and the all-male school board decided it was too dark," Becker says.

That mural, which depicts social reformers Jane Addams, Clara Barton, Harriett Tubman, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and others, advocated reform for women at a time when that was not a popular sentiment, Becker says. Also, "Millman was thought to be a leftist at the time."

The mural is now restored to its full glory at Lucy Flower Career Academy High School.

Some of the murals are as large as 80 feet long. In their attempt to discover the long-lost works, the restorers chipped away at paint on auditorium walls and cafeterias and searched basements and janitors' closets.

Once the artworks were discovered, Becker worked with school district officials and Mayor Richard Daley to raise awareness of the art treasures. The $2 million restoration project was supported by the Chicago Public Building Commission, the school district, and small, private foundations.

Among the students and staff in schools with murals, "there's been an incredible amount of pride now that they recognize they have masterworks in their midst," Becker says. Visitors have been touring schools to see the art, and teachers are using the murals in their lessons.

The district and the Art Institute of Chicago's Museum Education Department created a curriculum that uses the murals to teach literature and history.

Noting that there are WPA murals all across the country, many of them forgotten in warehouses, Becker hopes the Chicago restoration effort "inspires other local projects and encourages more interest in the arts."