Introduction
The chosen topic for this paper is the Coit Tower Murals. The research will be conducted through an illustrated essay with photos and pictures. The Coit Tower in San Francisco features several murals and paintings. These murals are labor arts that elaborate on the life of California during the Great Depression. The thesis statement for this research paper is: The Coit Tower paintings reflect urbanisation, commerce, politics, agriculture, and industry while depicting California during the Great Depression.
Coit Tower Murals
San Francisco is the home to the iconic Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill and hosts a collection of murals. After construction of the tower ended in 1933, 25 muralists, 21 men and four women, were chosen to use true fresco to decorate the interior (Raussert, 2022). Five oil-decorated canvas murals and 18 fresco murals decorate the first floor’s elevator lobby. In contrast, the Berlandina room on the second floor is decorated with four fresco secco murals (Raussert, 2022).
History of Coit Tower
Henry Temple and Arthur Brown, Jr., are the architects who designed and built the tower. Lillie Hitchcock Coit, a wealthy socialite, funded the tower’s construction by donating $118,000 before her death (Oles, 2022). Additional city funds of about $7,000 were used to design and complete the monument on October 8, 1933 (Charny, 2020). In 1984, San Francisco listed Coit Tower as a historic landmark (Cherny, 2020). However, over the years, controversies have led to the removal of several murals, including the Surveyor and the Steelworker.
Themes
In their paintings, the artists express the different degrees of Marxist and leftist political ideas and racial inequality. The heroic stances of socialist realism demonstrate that workers are considered equal, regardless of their race. However, the well-groomed, racially white capitalists enjoy the production of their hard work (Oles, 2022).
Some controversial paintings, such as the California Industrial Scenes, show an ethnically diverse labour march while the wealthy observe amusingly (Raussert, 2022). Other murals, such as Banking and Law, show lawyers and bankers proceeding with work normally despite stocks declining in the middle of the great depression. Below is a list of murals, although some were removed, that depict life in California during the Great Depression.
Beautiful Murals at the Coit Tower
Machine Force and Animal Force
Animal Force by Ray Boynton illustrates the employment of animals in agriculture, while Machine Force shows how the industrial revolution affected building, transport, and energy generation.
California Industrial Scenes
The industrial scenes depict oil recovery, mining, and construction. John Langley Howard made the 24-foot mural to show huge groups of unemployed individuals congregating to try to solve the situation. Wealthy onlookers watch the events develop rapidly for their enjoyment.
Railroad and Shipping
Up until a downturn in output due to a lack of finance and employment, engines were the driving force in the West. William Hesta made the paintings to show a rail yard close to a dock with thick vegetation due to disuse.
Surveyor
In this painting, a labourer stands tall to symbolize the importance of teamwork to triumph. Unfortunately, Clifford Wight’s prototype is not complete due to its controversial aspects.
Steelworker
It is another painting by Clifford Wight, with a similar stance and style as the surveyor, but filled with empowering quotes. However, it also had controversial symbols showing communism and capitalism, and was removed in 1934.
Industries of California
Ralph Stackpole actualizes people working with their hands in the painting. Every worker is doing their metal casting, canning, or packing tasks with a determined face.
Newsgathering
Suzanne Scheuer is a female artist behind this mural, where visitors can view the timeline of dedicated journalists, interviewing, typing, and conducting daily tasks until the paper is complete and delivered.
Library
The mural, created by Bernard Zakeim, depicts a large group of people swarming around a column of books while reading various magazines and books. The books are suspicious because they are the works of social critic Kenneth Rexroth, Hitler, and Oscar Wilde (a rumoured homosexual).
Stockbroker and Scientist Inventor
The stockbroker shows a sad scene of a drained man after receiving bad news. Harold Mallette Dean interwove this scene with another painting, Scientist Inventor, which shows a man in front of an observatory.
City Life
The painting by Victor Armautoff shows the busy street scenes of San Francisco’s financial district and how city dwellers can often get entangled in situations without noticing what is right ahead of them. No individual pays attention to a road accident as they commute and work.
Banking and Law
George Albert Harris wishes art enthusiasts could notice the book’s title in the mural because it provides an intuitive and humorous commentary on the economic environment of that time. The painting depicts bankers and lawyers conducting their usual hustle.
Department Store
In the 1930s, life was about congregating on streets and running errands. Painter Freddie Vidar shows families and workers entering certain stores for supplies and groceries.
Cowboy and Farmer
Clifford Wight painted these large figures, showing huge figures of a farmer and a cowboy holding essential equipment, as a solid depiction of their industries.
California
Maxine Albro developed this mural to show the rich state of California, which exports huge amounts of agricultural products. Although the sunny scenes are amazing, the painting shows traces of workers feeling burdened by the governing administrations.
Meat Industry
Roy Bertrand shows scenes of meat packaging processes in California, an everyday business in the 1930s.
Power
The painting shows a giant fist, which represents social evolution. Fredrick Olmsted created the painting to portray the core message of all other paintings in a single scene.
Bay Area Hills
Rinaldo Cuneo developed this oil painting using upfront imagery to illuminate the city’s beauty and environs.
Boy Scene
Jose Moya del Pino wanted to draw admirers to the bright colors and simplicity of the vistas overlooking the bay from Telegraph Hill and deliver them to the calm and sunny landscape.
San Francisco Bay
The oil painting created by Otis Oldfield wanted to showcase the beautiful scenery surrounding Telegraph Hill, emphasizing the water full of marine traffic and ferries.
Coit Tower Politics
Twenty-six artists selected to develop the murals began working in January 1934. They had local autonomy and freedom of expression when creating modern frescoes. However, controversy began around mid-February after Diego Rivera’s mural, the V. I Lenin at Rockefeller Centre in New York, was purchased and destroyed (Jewett, n.d.).
The patrons who destroyed it said the portrait was against the capitalists’ beliefs. The destruction of the portrait was viewed as an epidemic affecting American culture that had threatened to eliminate their creative efforts (Oles, 2022). Paintings at the Coit Tower decided to showcase newspaper headlines of these events.
Influential citizens worried that some of the artwork’s emblems and elements could be regarded as communist propaganda. They stressed that the media could take a hostile approach towards these murals unless the details and symbols were removed (Jewett, n.d.; Raussert, 2022). For instance, Wight’s sickle and hammer symbolized Soviet symbols, and officials in Washington wanted the insulting murals to be painted over.
Also, Bernard Zakheim’s Library depicted radical newspapers that appeared to invite reproach, especially when John Howard reached for Karl Marx’s Das Kapital. However, writers and artists knew that the looming controversy from officials was a way of hiding the problems facing the city of California.
After much disagreement, the Zakheim, Howard, and Arnautoff frescoes remained intact. Wight refused to change his paintings, The Surveyor and the Steelworker, and together with the Artists’ and Writers’ Union, they decided to stand firm on the artist’s integrity (Jewett, n.d.). Wight noted that he used Communism, The New Deal, and Capitalism as symbols, not of propaganda or exhortation, but to represent the country’s historical facts on social change (Cherny, 2020). However, legal counsel intervened, and the paintings were finally removed, opening the Coit Tower in October 1934.
Conclusion
The Coit Tower in San Francisco holds an extensive collection of amazing paintings and murals. These murals depicted California life and labor themes during the Great Depression. However, the murals sparked a controversy because they spread communism and propaganda.
For instance, John Howard reaching for Karl Marx’s Das Kapital seemed to invite reproach. After many legal and political battles, most paintings were retained except one. Although the tower was eventually opened, the artists articulated that more had to be done about the freedom of local autonomy and artistic expression.
References
Cherny, R. W. (2020). San Francisco’s new deal murals in long-term perspective: Controversy, neglect, and restoration. California History, 97(1), 3-32. Web.
Jewett, M. Z. (n.d.). Coit Tower politics. Web.
Oles, J. (2022). Diego Rivera’s America. University of California Press.
Raussert, W., Anatol, G. l., Thies, S., Berkin, S. C. (2022). The Routledge handbook to the culture and media of the Americas. Routledge.