More Related Content
Viewers also liked
Viewers also liked (20)
Jury Duty Pp
- 1. Law and Culture Federal Courthouse, Cedar Rapids 1936
- 51. Jury Duty CSPS, Cedar Rapids 2004
Editor's Notes
- In 1936, a group of Iowa artists were hired by the US Treasury Department to paint murals for the Federal Courthouse in Cedar Rapids. The title of the murals was Law and Culture .
- They were members of the Cooperative Mural Painters Association. Pictured here are (left to right,) Howard Johnson, Everett Jeffrey, Francis Robert White, Harry Donald Jones and Donald Glasell.
- They were former students of Grant Wood, and had done detail work on Wood’s murals for the Iowa State University Library.
- But their true aesthetic interests lay with the contemporary mural artists of Mexico, Rivera, Sigueiros, and Orozco.
- The murals surrounded the courtroom, and were painted in an area 5’6” high and over 200’ long, above wood paneling.
- The artists sent sketches to Washington for approval, which were returned with suggested revisions.
- Employing homemade wooden scaffolding the artists painted directly on the walls.
- These photographs from the National Archives were taken of the work-in-progress, and of the finished murals.
- The medium for the murals was egg tempera, which mixes the yolks of fresh eggs with dry pigment.
- The Opening of the Midwest by Francis Robert White
- East Wall by Everett Jeffery
- Inherited Culture , by Harry Donald Jones
- West Wall by Donald Glasell
- White’s wall depicted the suffering of American Indians
- The struggles of the early settlers.
- Slaves and immigrant workers on the Mississippi,
- Coolies and laborers building the transcontinental railroad,
- The rise of single family farms,
- Followed by industry, tenements and pollution.
- Harry Donald Jones painted transitional figures in the four corners of the room.
- Everett Jeffrey painted a scene of vigilante justice on the East Wall.
- And the rule of law which replaced it.
- Witchcraft and superstition
- Replaced by science and medicine
- Harry Donald Jones showed a nude man talking to a doctor.
- In the Inherited Culture section, Jones showed Mexican muralist, Jose Clemente Orozco at work on his murals for Dartmouth University
- Jones also pictured archeology
- And interest in pre-Columbian culture,
- Leading to the discovery of
- The origins of agriculture.
- A Food Co-op,
- People looking for work, and working at a variety of jobs,
- In construction,
- And public safety
- Were painted by Donald Glasell.
- The series ended with a depiction of futility of war
- Howard Johnson was probably responsible for painting the lunettes on the East and West walls.
- Notice the differences between the sketches and the finished murals, The way the artist simplified the judge in art deco style.
- The linotype operator in the sketch became the food co-op in the finished mural.
- An image of protest was toned down to a picture of men in various occupations.
- This section began as a scene in a movie theater,
- In a later sketch it became a family entering an arcade.
- The final version ’Sweden Defeats Syphilis’ and ‘Play Ball’ reads like sophomoric humor.
- You might imagine this image was controversial, but it was not often mentioned in contemporary accounts. Maybe because it was, not an unbiblical image, but an Armageddon image of Christ returning at the end of time.
- Images of revolutionary ‘Christ-like’ figure were common during the depression, like this depiction of John Brown, the radical abolitionist in a crucifixion pose, by John Stuart Curry.
- The most controversial part of the murals was the depiction of a lynching that hung opposite the jury box.
- Read in sequence, it said the rule of law prevails, but the lawyers on both sides of the aisle complained it was prejudicial.
- Like in this picture from John Stuart Curry in the Justice Department it was intended to say the court protects the individual from the mob.
- For an installation at CSPS, five artists made work that used the murals for inspiration. JC Mac Queen made a video that included scenes from movies of the thirties.
- I made drawing on the walls
- Adam Murray made scaffolding
- David Dunlap added drawing and sculpture
- Matt McConville dealt with the lynching theme.
- During a performance on the 4 th of July,
- I told the story of the murals
- Demonstrated the technique for making egg tempera