| Life of Washington | |
|---|---|
| Artist | Victor Arnautoff |
| Year | 1936 |
| Medium | Fresco |
| Movement | Social realism |
| Subject | George Washington |
| Dimensions | 1600 square feet |
| Location | San Francisco |
Life of Washington is amural cycle in San Francisco'sGeorge Washington High School painted byVictor Arnautoff in 1936.[1] It depictsGeorge Washington at various real and imagined points in his life. Composed of 13 panels and spanning 1600 square feet, the work was the largest mural by a single artist that theWPA funded.[2][better source needed] According to the art criticRoberta Smith, the cycle is "among the most honest and possibly the most subversive of the W.P.A. era".[3]
Since the 1960s,vignettes in two of the panels, entitled "Mount Vernon" and "Westward Vision",[4] have been controversial due to their depiction ofslavery andNative Americans. Activists have sought the removal of the artwork, contending that the mural's imagery creates a hostile environment. Preservationists argue that the imagery is subversive as Arnautoff, a communist protege ofDiego Rivera, was critiquing the country's colonial past.[1][5]
In 2019San Francisco School Board voted to paint over all 13 panels. After a national uproar, the board decided to conceal the art work instead.[6][7] Subsequently the school's alumni association sued the district for violation of California'sEnvironmental Quality Act. In 2021, a superior court judge agreed that the law had not been followed, and ruled that the mural should remain in public view.[8][9] The board initially appealed[10] that decision; however, after three board members were ousted in therecall election of 2022, a new board voted to comply with the judge's ruling. The lawsuit cost the district $525,000 in legal fees.[11]
TheWorks Progress Administration commissioned Victor Arnautoff to paint a mural at the newly opened George Washington High School in San Francisco'sRichmond District. The work took nearly a year to complete, a time which Arnautoff described as marked by “creative fire and enormous spiritual investment.”[12] "I tried my best to convey the spirit of Washington's time”, Arnautoff wrote in his autobiography.[12] Upon its completion, theSan Francisco Chronicle called it “one of the major masterpieces of fresco on this coast".[13] The work spanned a total of 1600 square feet and was composed of 13 panels, of which two were to become controversial: One depicts slaves working at Washington'sMount Vernon estate, and the other shows the body of an apparently slain Native American during the country'swestward expansion.[6]
Student activists sought to remove the mural in the 1960s and 1970s due to its depiction ofslavery.[7] Members of the School's Black Student Union initially demanded that the mural be destroyed but after discussions with Arnautoff's son and local artists decided that it was “historically sound and should remain on view”.[7] Instead, they demanded that a Black artist be hired to paint a response mural, recommending painterDewey Crumpler for the job. A poll of the students at the time, by principal Ruth Adams, found that 61% favored supplementing rather than removing the mural.[12][7]
TheSan Francisco Arts Commission and theSan Francisco Board of Education hired Crumpler to paint a "response mural" that depicted the historic struggles of people of color in America.[14] Arnautoff indicated he was glad his work had "provided the impetus for this new progressive work".[12] Crumpler devoted 8 years to complete his mural, dubbedMulti-Ethnic Heritage,[14] in conversation with Washington students, and said repeatedly that he was against destroying Arnautoff's mural: “My mural is part of the Arnautoff mural, part of its meaning, and its meaning is part of mine. If you destroy his work of art, you are destroying mine as well.”[7][14]
In 2016,Matt Haney, who was president ofSan Francisco Board of Education at the time, restarted a discussion of the mural when he proposed onTwitter that the school should be renamed after alumnaMaya Angelou, because George Washington was a slave owner.[15] In 2018 the Board opposed city's nomination of the George Washington High School as ahistorical landmark "over concerns that the designation could complicate the potential removal" of the mural.[16] In June 2019, theSan Francisco Board of Education voted unanimously to paint over all thirteen panels,[17] with commissionerMark Sanchez stating that "this is reparations".[6][7] Sanchez later added that simply concealing the mural wasn't an option because it would “allow for the possibility of them being uncovered in the future.”[18] The cost was estimated at $600,000 to $875,000.[19] Prior to the decision, 8 out of 11 members of a community panel, called "Reflection and Action Working Group",[5] had voted to archive the mural and then paint it over because the artwork “glorifies slavery,genocide,colonization,Manifest Destiny,white supremacy, oppression, etc.” and does not reflectSFUSD's “values ofsocial justice”.[1][5] Some alumni had previously complained that the imagery of slavery and the dead Native American are harmful to students.[17] Supporters of removing the mural included alumnaLateefah Simon,[13] and SupervisorShamann Walton.[16]
The board's decision to destroy the mural drew widespread criticism on the local and national level. Opponents of destroying the mural in the Bay Area included prominent members of the African American community: alumnusDanny Glover,[20] alumni parentsAlice Walker[21] andWillie Brown,[22] and president of the local branch ofNAACPAmos Brown.[23] Arnautoff's biographer, Professor Robert Cherny ofSan Francisco State University, argued that the mural was created as a "counter narrative" to what was being taught in schools at the time: Arnautoff "was very critical of Washington for owning slaves, and ... of the genocide of Native Americans”.[24][1]Apollo arts magazine agreed that "Arnautoff's focus on Native Americans, enslaved African Americans, and a rioting underclass overthrowing British tyranny provides a template for telling a different story of America's foundations."[25]
Crumpler, now a professor atSan Francisco Art Institute, continued to advocate for keeping the mural: “Art's role, if it's any good, is to make us uncomfortable with the status quo”.[26] Many other Bay Area art leaders, polled bySan Francisco Chronicle, urged preserving the mural for public view.[27] HistorianRobin Kelley stated that in using the word "reparations", Mark Sanchez "not only perverts the concept of reparations" but also fails to see that the funds for the high cost of destruction "could have been invested in arts education or an anti-racist curriculum".[7] A poll of San Francisco voters, commissioned by the Coalition to Protect Public Art, found that 76% opposed destroying the mural, including 72% of people of color.[28] Supporters of the coalition included former mayorArt Agnos,[28] former SupervisorMatt Gonzalez,[29] and vice president of the George Washington High School Alumni Association Lope Yap Jr.[28] California senator,Dianne Feinstein,[30] declared her opposition to removing the mural as well.Gray Brechin, the founder of "Living New Deal" project andUC Berkeley professor, called on people “to recall the school board.”[31]
Condemnation of board's decision reached national proportions with a column byBari Weiss[18] inThe New York Times.[14] Afterward 400 artists and scholars signed a letter asking the board to reverse its decision.[32] Signatories included noted academicsAijaz Ahmad,Wendy Brown,Judith Butler,Hal Foster,Michael Fried,Fredric Jameson,David Harvey, andAdolph Reed. The letter stated that the mural "is an important work of art, produced for all Americans under the auspices of a federal government seeking to ensure the survival of art during theGreat Depression ... its meaning and commitments are not in dispute. It exposes and denounces in pictorial form the US history ofracism andcolonialism. The only viewers who should feel unsafe before this mural are racists.”[33]Rocco Landesman, the former chairman of theNational Endowment for the Arts, added "when important artworks of our cultural heritage are not just hidden away but destroyed, how do these desecrations differ from those of theTaliban, who blew up theBamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan, or theISIS commanders whodestroyed ancient monuments nearPalmyra, Syria?”[34] This is "philistinism", Landesman concluded.[34]
The decision to destroy the mural was reversed in August 2019, with 4 to 3 vote to cover it up with panels instead.[35] Board members who voted in the minority, insisting that the art work be destroyed, wereAlison Collins, Gabriella Lopez, and Mark Sanchez. Subsequently, the George Washington High School Alumni Association sued the school board for its failure to conduct an environmental review as required by theCalifornia Environmental Quality Act.
On July 27, 2021, superior court judge Anne-Christine Massullo ruled in favor of the alumni association, preventing the board from covering the mural.[8] Judge Massullo wrote: "Neutral administrative procedures must be applied without regard to political interests."[36] The judge also found out that the 11 member community panel assembled in 2019 had made up its mind before organizing public meetings. “A PowerPoint presentation,” she wrote, “did not contain one reference to keeping the murals.”[9] The evidence "overwhelmingly" supports the Alumni Association's case, the judge concluded.[10]
On October 5, 2021, the board decided by a 6 to 1 vote to appeal the decision. Up to that time the case had cost the district $148,000 in legal fees, while the district faced a budget shortfall of $116 million.[10]
In addition to California state regulations, the frescos may also be protected under federal law, since Arnautoff's work was commissioned byW.P.A. In 2019,General Services Administration indicated that it was conducting research to determine whether the mural was property of the federal government, and asked the district to keep it updated.[37][38]
On February 15, 2022, commissionersAlison Collins and Gabriella Lopez wererecalled from office, by 76% and 72% of the vote respectively.[39][40] It was San Francisco's first ever election to oust members of the School Board,[41] and the first successful recall election in San Francisco since the ouster of California SenatorEdwin Grant in 1914.[42][43] The mural destruction attempt was cited as one of the "key controversies" leading to the recall.[44][45][46]Mark Sanchez, the only other commissioner who did not reverse his destruction vote, was not eligible for recall at that time.
In a 4-3 vote on June 22, 2022, the new school board decided to follow the judges order to vacate its previous decision to cover the mural, and abandon its attempts to appeal that decision. The commissioners who voted against the measure were Mark Alexander, Kevine Boggess, andMark Sanchez.[47][48] Up to that time the legal costs had grown to $525,000 while the district faced a budget shortfall of $125 million.[11]
Arnautoff painted the mural directly on wetplaster in thesocial realist style, much akin to thefrescos of his mentor,Diego Rivera.[13] He was a well-known radical and communist who had been investigated by theHouse Un-American Activities Committee, and painted other murals containing subversive imagery.[49][12] For instance, in theCity Life mural painted inCoit Tower, Aranutoff included a self portrait next to a magazine stand filled with leftist publications.[12][50] In an interview in 1935, Arnautoff stated “The artist is a critic of society.... I wish to deal with people, to explain to them things and ideas they may not have seen or understood.”[7]
InLife of Washington, Arnautoff placed slaves and working people in the center of several of the panels, rather than Washington. In the words of Arnautoff's biographer, "the mural makes clear that slave labor provide[d] the plantation's economic basis", at a time when high school history classes "ignored... that the nation's founders... owned other human beings as chattel". Similarly, Arnautoff placed the body of a dead Native American at the feet of pioneers, "challenging the prevailing narrative that westward expansion had been into largely vacant territory waiting for white pioneers to develop its full potential".[12]: Ch. 7
The Native American in the "Westward Vision" panel is rendered in full color, facing away from the viewer, while the pioneers walking behind it are depicted in "ghostly hues of grey and white".[25] According toApollo art magazine, "the direct connection between the policies of thefounding fathers andIndian genocide is made obvious by Arnautoff's placement of George Washington in the panel. His right hand points to a map and his left to the ghostly white settlers, as in the panel's background forests give way to cities". Inducing discomfort in the viewer "was precisely Arnautoff's point".[25] Dewey Crumpler and others have suggested that the tree painted next to the Native American's head is an ironic reference to theWashington cherry tree myth that eulogized Washington as a symbol of honesty.[14][51]