News

Hope Steven Garden Mural Restoration

Posted June 2, 2013

Over 20 years of sun, wind, rain and wall repairs have rendered the mural a ghost of its former self—the brilliant, high intensity greens, turquoise, reds, purples and yellows now dull, faded and abraded. Located on West 142nd Street between Amsterdam Avenue and Hamilton Place in West Harlem, the mural is adjacent to the Hope Steven Community Garden.

• The restoration is a project of RESCUE PUBLIC MURALS—an innovative,
  national program based in Washington, D.C.—and has been made
  possible by FRIENDS OF HERITAGE PRESERVATION, a private charitable
  group that seeks to promote cultural identity through the
  preservation of significant endangered artistic and historic works,
  artifacts, and sites. Suzanne Deal Booth, president of Friends of
  Heritage Preservation states, “We are pleased to partner with Rescue
  Public Murals in order to restore this mural which plays an important
  role in its community. Committed to serving as agents in the
  preservation process, we strive to bring awareness to the concerns of
  cultural heritage.” Golden Artist Colors has also provided support
  for the project.
  
  
  The American tradition of outdoor community murals—collaborations
  between artists and neighborhood groups—began in the late 1960s and
  over four decades has contributed vibrant landmarks to cities and
  towns across the country. As the years have passed, many of these
  fragile artworks have deteriorated markedly. Rescue Public Murals
  was launched in 2006 to bring attention to the significant historic
  and artistic value of community murals. The program brings
  professional conservators together with artists to ensure that these
  murals will survive for several more decades.
• A muralist, studio painter, writer and teacher, Eva Cockcroft (1936-99)
  was an important figure in both the New York and national community
  mural movements. Homage to Seurat is her only remaining mural in New
  York City. In addition to Homage to Seurat, Rescue Public Murals has
  identified and assessed important and endangered murals in Atlanta,
  Chicago, Philadelphia, Santa Fe, El Paso, Minneapolis, Los Angeles,
  San Diego, and San Francisco and is planning to work with these
  communities to secure the funds necessary to restore them.
• New York City muralist Janet Braun-Reinitz, who has painted over 50
  murals in New York City, several states, and abroad, is directing the
  restoration and is working in collaboration with muralists Rochelle
  Shicoff and Maria Dominguez. Apprentices from local arts
  organizations are assisting the muralists. They are Alexandra
  Unthank from Harlem Arts Alliance, Jessica Guzman from CAW4Kids
  (Creative Arts Workshop), and Ariel Mercado from Children’s Art
  Carnival. Consulting on the project is New York City conservator
  Harriet Irgang Alden of Rustin Levenson Art Conservation.
  
  “The fading and flaking of the paint is largely due to the fact that
  the wall was neither primed before painting, nor sealed after the
  mural’s completion,” explains Irgang Alden. “Moreover cracks
  and leaks in the building required the replastering of a large
  section of the wall, obliterating imagery. Fortunately the original
  mural was well documented.” Braun-Reinitz adds, “We are applying
  a clear coating of Golden’s Soft Gel Gloss to the existing mural
  which seals the original paint and serves as a primer. This way we
  can replicate Eva’s precise colors and shapes. As much as possible,
  we are using the same Golden Artist Colors Eva used, although she
  mixed many of the hues herself which we need to replicate.”
  
  Building repairs obliterated nearly 20 percent of the mural on the
  left wall, and the artists will recreate the imagery referring to
  original photographs of the mural. They must also consider the new
  surface of this section of the wall which markedly differs from the
  textured original. Finally, the mural will be coated with a
  protective layer of Soft Gel Gloss and a reversible Golden MSA
  Varnish with UVLS that will not only prevent the sun’s ultraviolet
  rays from fading the paint, but will also allow future caretakers to
  gently clean the mural without harming the newly applied paint.
  
  As is done with all conservation projects, notes and photographs were
  taken before the project began, and this documentation will continue
  during the restoration and after its completion. A very small area
  of the mural will not be restored, or only be partially restored, to
  help conservation researchers better understand the deterioration of
  paint outdoors.
• Photographs follow the background information below
  and can be downloaded from
  www.heritagepreservation.org/RPM/photo.html

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

HOPE STEVEN GARDEN & ITS MURAL
In 1986, Hope Steven Community Garden (then known as the West Harlem
Group Assistance Garden) was selected to participate in Artists in
the Gardens, a project of GreenThumb, the community gardening program
sponsored by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.
From a roster of artists chosen by a panel of art professionals, the
gardeners selected Eva Cockcroft to paint a mural on the building
facing their garden. In 1998, the garden was sold by the City of New
York to the Trust for Public Land for eventual transfer to the newly
formed Manhattan Land Trust, thus ensuring its preservation. “Like
our garden, which was established in 1983, Homage to Seurat has
become a beloved fixture in our Hamilton Heights neighborhood,” says
garden representative Ginny Outlaw. “We are very pleased that the
mural will be restored to its former beauty.”


HOMAGE TO SEURAT: LA GRANDE JATTE IN HARLEM
The mural is painted on two walls of a building—an indented central
area served as half of an air shaft shared with the building formerly
sited on the garden land—that spans the short block of West 142nd
Street between Amsterdam Avenue and Hamilton Place. Taking advantage
of the heavily textured stucco surface, Eva Cockcroft developed a
design inspired by the pointillist painting A Sunday on La Grande
Jatte—1884 by Georges Seurat. Adapting several figures in the Post-
Impressionist work—working class Parisians enjoying a weekend
afternoon on a island park in the middle of the Seine—Cockcroft
transferred the setting to New York and heightened Seurat’s muted
colors to reflect Harlem’s Sunday best finery. Cockcroft designed
the mural by projecting photographs of building’s façade onto large
sheets of paper hung on the walls of her studio, working with the
stucco shapes to determine the composition and color. Hands, elbows,
and the faces of the figures, for example, are painted on the raised
stucco portions to give them a sense of three-dimensionality.


EVA COCKCROFT (1936-99)
Muralist, painter, arts activist and educator, Cockcroft was a
founder in 1983 and the first president of Artmakers Inc., an artist-
run, politically-oriented community mural organization that works in
collaboration with local residents to create public art relevant to
their lives and concerns. In 1985, she directed the 26-mural cycle
La Lucha Mural Park in Manhattan’s East Village as well as park’s
central panel La Lucha Continua/The Struggle Continues (30’ x
40’). Today, only traces of some smaller panels exist. Cockcroft
earned a reputation as a prominent visual artist and social
commentator during the activist 1960s, and her large-scale murals
reflected a lifelong commitment to human rights.

In 1983, Cockcroft wrote: “Painted images cannot stop wars or win
the struggle for justice, but they are not irrelevant. They fortify
and enrich the spirit of those who are committed to the struggle and
help to educate those who are unaware.” Following the completion of
Homage to Seurat, Cockcroft—joined by Artmakers colleagues and using
leftover materials—painted the anti-drug mural Push Crack Back on
the building directly opposite the garden, a response to neighborhood
residents who, stopping to admire Seurat, spoke of the devastating
effect of drugs on neighborhood youth.

Cockcroft widely exhibited her studio work, and her book Toward a
People’s Art: The Contemporary Mural Movement (co-authored with John
Pitman Weber and James Cockcroft, 1977, reissued 1998 with an
afterword by Tim Drescher) remains a seminal analysis of the
movement’s early years.


RESCUE PUBLIC MURALS
Founded by Will Shank (an independent conservator and the former head
of conservation at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) and mural
historian Tim Drescher (author of San Francisco Murals: Community
Creates its Muse, 1914-1994 and the co-editor of Community Murals
magazine from 1976 to 1987), Rescue Public Murals aims to document,
publicize and conserve significant outdoor murals. As Drescher
notes, “Murals are important to their communities and to the people
who live and work near them every day. Yet they are fast
disappearing. Rescue Public Murals’ goal is to build public
awareness and generate national and local support to save these
endangered works of art.”

Launched in late 2006, Rescue Public Murals is a program of Heritage
Preservation, a national non-profit organization whose mission is to
preserve the nation’s heritage for future generations through
innovative leadership, education, and programs. Kristen Overbeck
Laise, who directs Rescue Public Murals, points out, “Community
murals not only are treasured landmarks in their neighborhoods, they
also play a significant role in our nation’s artistic and cultural
heritage, and we are committed to securing the expertise and support
to save them.”

Rescue Public Murals has also received support from the Getty
Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

For more information about the project go to
www.rescuepublicmurals.org or contact Rescue Public Murals, Heritage
Preservation, Inc., 1012 14th Street NW, Suite 1200, Washington, DC
20005, 202.233.0800.


FRIENDS OF HERITAGE PRESERVATION
Founded in 1998 by art historian and conservator Suzanne Deal Booth
and her husband David G. Booth, Friends of Heritage Preservation is a
private charitable group that partners with experts, scholars and
other organizations dedicated to the preservation of cultural
heritage. Fostering associations with local groups that work to
revitalize communities and strengthen connections to individual
cultural heritage, Friends of Heritage Preservation works to increase
global awareness for the plight of endangered works, artifacts and
sites. More information is available at www.fohpinfo.org.


JANET BRAUN-REINITZ
The current President of Artmakers Inc., Janet Braun-Reinitz is a
community muralist who has painted more than 50 community murals,
primarily in New York City. She has also worked in Savannah,
Pensacola, San Francisco, and Greenfield (MA) as well as Nicaragua,
Cuba, Georgia, England and Rome. In October 2009, she travels to
Bhopal, India, to paint a mural commemorating the 25th anniversary of
the chemical disaster. Braun-Reinitz is a frequent guest artist in
New York City’s public schools, for which she has developed many art
and design programs, and has exhibited her work in New York City,
nationally and abroad. She is the co-author of On the Wall: Four
Decades of Community Murals in New York City (with Jane Weissman,
University Press of Mississippi, 2009) and The Mural Book: A
Practical Guide for Educators (with Rochelle Shicoff, Crystal
Productions, 2001).


HARRIET IRGANG ALDEN
Harriet Irgang Alden directs the New York office of Rustin Levenson
Art Conservation Associates, which specializes in the conservation of
easel paintings and murals. She received a Masters degree in Art
History and a Diploma in Conservation from New York University’s
Institute of Fine Arts. Before joining Rustin Levenson in 1984, she
worked at the Brooklyn Museum of Art and the Philadelphia Museum of
Art. In 1998, Irgang Alden spent three months in Amsterdam treating
paintings from the 17th to 19th centuries at the invitation of the
Stichting Kollektief Restauratie Atelier and, since 2004, she has
traveled as a contract conservator for the Guggenheim Museum. Recent
projects include the restoration of the Beacon Theater murals,
Maxfield Parrish’s Old King Cole at the St. Regis Hotel, and
Panorama of Military History at West Point. Irgang Alden is the
author of “Considering Artists’ Intent in the Public
Arena” (Postprints, AIC Paintings Specialty Group, 1994) and is
currently the Vice President of the New York Regional Association for
Conservation.

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THE RESTORATION OF AN HISTORIC NEW YORK CITY COMMUNITY MURAL... a Project of RESCUE PUBLIC MURALS, a National Initiative

• Contact: Jane Weissman (212) 989 - 3006
  Email: urbecoart@aol.com

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