Historic murals come off Lane Tech walls, head downtown

A public school on the north side with a largely unseen (by the general public at least) treasure. Sun-Times:

Students and teachers at Lane Tech High School know the school is rich with art. They get to see it every day.

The general public, not so much.

Hanging along the hallways, in the school library and the vast cafeteria of the North Side school are 67 murals and frescoes painted in the early half of the 20th century.

Over the past 13 years, all the works have been restored to their original splendor. And now, in celebration of Lane Tech's centennial, 11 of the murals are traveling downtown to the Chicago Cultural Center, where they will be on display through December.

"This is a rare chance to take the murals to a larger audience," said Gregory Knight, deputy commissioner for visual arts in the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. "The murals are important both historically and artistically."

Four of the murals on display date from 1909, when the Public School Art Society held a contest at the School of the Art Institute and commissioned four student artists, including two women and an African-American, to create murals five feet high by 18 feet long.

The paintings would depict industrial scenes to "inspire and instruct" the young men attending the technical high school.

The resulting murals were Margaret Hittle's "Steel Mill," William E. Scott's "Dock Scene," Gordon Stevenson's "Construction Site" and Dorothy Loeb's "Primitive Forge."

Four years later, in 1913, seven more murals were painted by artist George Henry Brandt. Six of them -- "Storytelling," "Transportation," "Hunting," "Dance," "Festival Procession" and "Foundry, Religion, Art" -- are signed by Brandt. The seventh -- "Harvest" -- is unsigned but assumed to be by the artist.

Until 2004, only 10 of these murals were accounted for; Loeb's had been missing for decades.

Through a series of serendipitous encounters, former teacher Flora Doody found the missing mural. After it was restored, she began to plan something special for the school's anniversary.

"The idea of having a lengthy art show in the school was not an option," said Doody, who for 13 years has spearheaded the Mural Restoration Project at Lane Tech.

"Someone suggested I try the Cultural Center, and things began to take shape."

Read the whole thing there's even more than listed in this long excerpt. I've heard that in city schools there were murals that were painted during the New Deal.