Home——History——Remnants——Appendix——Acknowledgements——Coming——Contact——Links

Found Remnants / Murals

Brangwyn Murals
Those who visited the Exposition and who wrote of their experience never failed to note the abundance and quality of the artistic decoration which was incorporated into the architectural scheme. While the sculpture was especially varied and successful, mural decoration was also employed extensively and many of these works were excellent examples of this decorative form.

Nine muralists were given contracts by the Exposition which stipulated that the murals were to be created on the premises of the PPIE. Frank Herbert Todd’s official history written in 1916 claimed that this stemmed from a desire to insure that each artist’s use of color and thematic material be in concert with that of the others. However, the wide variety of styles these artists employed and the diversity of their palettes hardly supports this premise. It’s far more likely that this stipulation was seen as a way of eliminating the cost of packing and shipping the murals once they were completed. Having been painted in a studio which would eventually metamorphis into the Palace of Machinery, it was a relatively simple matter to move them to where they would be installed on the grounds.

The only painter who failed to travel to San Francisco for this purpose was Frank Brangwyn, a Belgium painter working in London who was the only foreign muralist under contract to the Exposition. Brangwyn painted eight vertically oriented murals mounted at the four corners of the cloister encircling the Court of Abundance. The symbolism of this court strove to convey a sense of Man’s evolution. Brangwyn selected as his themes the four elements of antiquity -- fire, earth, air and water -- and executed two murals for each “element” depicting man’s relationship with them. The 12 foot wide, 27 foot high panels proved to be too tall for his studio and he was forced to roll up a portion of the canvass while the remainder was being worked on. Consequently, Brangwyn was never able to view any mural in its entirety while it was being rendered. It is a testament to his considerable talent that he was able to create eight of the most romantically conceived and artfully composed murals to be seen at the PPIE while burdened by this limitation. His murals entitled, Industrial Fire, Primitive Fire, The Fruit Pickers, Dancing the Grapes, The Windmill, The Hunters, The Fountain, and The Net are permanently installed on the walls of the Herbst Theatre in the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center where they have been on view since its opening in 1932.
NEXT>