The Case for Keeping San Francisco’s Disputed George Washington Murals
Exposure to art — even uncomfortable art — is healthy, stimulating, and worthy of students’ debate.
The San Francisco Board of Education voted to cover “The Life of Washington,” a mural cycle from 1935-36, at a school named for the first president. Victor Arnautoff’s frescoes include images of slaves and a dead Native American, which angered some students and parents. CreditCreditJim Wilson/The New York Times
After half a century of intermittent debate and protest, the San Francisco Board of Education voted unanimously in June to whitewash the 13 murals depicting the life of George Washington that line the halls of a high school named for the first president. The murals’ offense is that they depict some ugly truths about the history of the United States, namely two of its original sins: slavery and the Native American genocide.
Scenes of slaves at work in the fields and barns of Washington’s Mount Vernon and a dead Native American that appear in three of the murals have understandably upset some minority students at the high school, and some parents. They find the images degrading, and their feelings should be taken into account. But there are other, more creative alternatives to overpainting that might be more beneficial for all concerned.
The murals were painted in 1935 and 1936 under the auspices of the Works Progress Administration, which created jobs for the unemployed suffering through the Great Depression. They were the work of a Russian émigré and Communist named Victor Arnautoff (1896-1979). I’ve not seen them in person — and may not get the chance — but the eight or so I found online struck me as among the most honest and possibly the most subversive of the W.P.A. era.
Arnautoff signaled the country’s underlying crimes by taking a more critical view of Washington’s life, portraying his ownership of slaves and his support of the genocidal Western expansion. The goal was to place him in context, against a dense panorama of history. They don’t tell the whole story — Washington changed his views on slavery dramatically over his lifetime — but for their time, the murals were daringly frank.
The second panel, “Westward Vision,” depicts Washington directing gun-carrying colonists westward, and an apparently slain Native American. CreditJim Wilson/The New York Times
In a democracy, destroying a work of art is never a solution to any offense it may give. Once art has been made and released into the often choppy flow of life, it should stay there. It will live on anyway. To dictate its elimination is an implicitly autocratic move, similar in spirit, if not scale, to the deliberate demolition of ancient art and artifacts by the Taliban and the Islamic State.
The offended parties in and around the high school assume that their feelings about the murals are permanent and paramount. Those favoring destruction think that they know what the art is about, and that they have the right to decide for everyone, now and in the future, what will be accessible, what will be known. But reactions to art are in constant flux, and the best art should contain multitudes of interpretations.
Does the Board of Education really want the destruction of an 83-year-old mural cycle on its hands? It recalls the shameful eradication of “Man at the Crossroads,” the Diego Rivera mural that was plastered over at Rockefeller Center in 1934 by the Rockefellers.
Now, like then, it raises the question: Who owns a work of art? As the angry Rivera wrote in a letter, “If someone buys the Sistine Chapel, does he have the authority to destroy it?” Art, especially effective art, is never really owned by anyone.
Working during the interwar period, when prejudice was rampant and Jim Crow prevailed, and not just in Southern states, Arnautoff did not just paint your grandfather’s W.P.A. murals. His Communist faith evidently made him determined to avoid the typical patriotic gloss of Washington’s life and also to teach some larger lessons, and he did so with great care. After all, his designs had to pass committee approval.
Which they did, enabling him to discreetly — even gently — insert slavery and the Indian genocide into his murals without sensationalizing them. These are among the scars on this country that every American — schoolchild or adult, of any race — should learn about in detail, keep learning about and never forget.
A detail from one of the panels, which shows Washington’s slaves working in the fields of Mount Vernon.CreditJim Wilson/The New York Times
Arnautoff’s “Mount Vernon” from the mural cycle shows the first president with what appears to be a slave overseer.CreditJim Wilson/The New York Times
The murals are amazing feats of storytelling, full of visual subtleties, quiet messages and jolts. The main actors in each scene are physically substantial and dignified regardless of race. The slaves wear white, signaling goodness and innocence. All the figures have different degrees of autonomy.
In “Washington and Western Expansion” the Indian lies on his chest almost as if asleep, his body free of signs of struggle. Washington extends his arm, sending a group of pioneers westward. Walking past the fallen figure, they are rendered in grays: Ghostly, deathly, they tread on hallowed ground, personifying the coming threat of Manifest Destiny. In another mural, two Native Americans are armed with rifles, while others, backed by French soldiers, attack colonial soldiers; three surrender, one lies dead on the ground.
Elsewhere, Washington confers with his white slave overseer, while a black groom — handsome, alert, handsomely dressed — holds the reins of his horse.
George Washington High School contains major works by three other W.P.A. artists, including two 27-foot murals in the school’s library, “Contemporary Education” by Ralph Stackpole and “Advancement of Learning Through the Printing Press” by Lucien Labaudt. And at one end of the football field, there is an astounding sculptural relief initiated by Beniamino Bufano and completed by Sargent Johnson; its overlapping figures fuse elements of Egyptian, Assyrian and Greek art and Art Deco.
Another George Washington High School mural is Lucien Labaudt’s “Advancement of Learning through the Printing Press” from 1936.CreditAmanda Law
A sculptural relief by the football field was initiated by Beniamino Bufano and completed by Sargent Johnson; its overlapping figures fuse elements of Egyptian, Assyrian and Greek art and Art Deco.
