The Decorated School: 01/07/2012

Saturday, 7 July 2012

Mural discovered in dining area of USA school, soon to be demolished

It is the case that on both sides of the Atlantic, school building stock is being evaluated with a mind to either demolition or substantial renovation. On both sides of the Atlantic long forgotten murals are turning up through the demolition process, sometimes generating community campaigns to preserve them. This mural is a WPA example from Cleveland that is to be lost. Full story here.

Friday, 6 July 2012

College Mural depicting lynching and organised labour.

Mural entitled "The Struggle of the South," by the communist painter Joe Jones. Painted in 1935 for Commonwealth College near the western Arkansas town of Mena and displayed in a dining hall. The school was opened in 1923. The mural is to be restored after having been removed and stored over decades in the school's art department.

The Decorated School Research network

We are researching the relationships between architects, artists and educators through the art which became part of the fabric of school buildings and their immediate environments in the 20th century. We are interested in understanding more about how the art came to be commissioned, how the subject matter was decided, what was its function, its life story and what ideas about education or childhood, if any, were intended to be conveyed.

The research is funded by the Arts and Humanites Research Council and is led by Dr Catherine Burke, Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge and Dr Jeremy Howard, Art History, University of St Andrews. There will be 4 seminars, open to the public, at sites of significant interest over the next 2 years as well as a final international conference and book. We will use this site to announce events, collect material and report on findings. Do contact us to let us know of any school based murals, ceramics, textiles, sculptures by recognised artists - possibly in collaboration with school pupils - that you know exist. Many of these may be in danger as school buildings are becoming replaced often with scant regard to the treasures that they contain.

Project Partners
Peter Blundell-Jones, School of Architecture,University of Sheffield
Peter Cunningham, Homerton College, University of Cambridge
Ian Grosvenor, School of Education,University of Birmingham Roy Kozlovsky, School of Architecture, Northeastern University, USA
Kirk Niergarth, Art Historian, Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada
Professeur Annie Renonciat, visual education historian, Institut National de Recherche Pédagogique and Université Paris, France.
Andrew Saint, architectural historian, English Heritage Deborah Wakely, architect, ARK, UK Diane Watters, Buildings Investigator, Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland
Jon Wood,Henry Moore Institute, Leeds
Andrew Demetrius Visual Resources Curator School of Art History University of St Andrews