Hidden art: Depression-era mural to return to life in Cedar Rapids City Hall

CEDAR RAPIDS - Come the end of April, residents will see the main reason workers on two occasions - the last time some 50 years ago - painted over a Great Depression-era mural that adorned the large courtroom in the former federal courthouse.

In 2011, the courthouse at 101 First St. SE became City Hall, and its large courtroom became the City Council chambers. On April 13, a city-hired restoration firm will begin work to unveil the third wall of the four-wall mural for all to see. This part of the public art project will restore the 'most controversial” piece of the overall mural, which wraps around the top of the room, said artist Mel Andringa, co-founder of Legion Arts in Cedar Rapids.

It is controversial because the restoration will reveal an image of a vigilante hanging, which at the time was positioned on the east wall directly across from the jury box.

Judges in 1954 painted over the mural, in part, because defense lawyers objected to the image of the hanging even though it was paired with a show of progress - an image of modern-day law and order. Restored in 1961, it was covered over again a few years later.

By way of explanation in 2009, U.S. District Court Senior Judge Edward McManus said he had decided to restore the mural and then cover it over again in the 1960s after art experts said it had neither artistic nor much historic value.

In 2011, a historic preservation officer from the U.S. General Services Administration said the reasons for painting over the mural were twofold: Some took offense at the images, and some thought the art inferior to other federally funded murals of the 1930s.

Sean Ulmer, executive director of the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, said Friday that the restoration is a valuable lesson about the importance of not destroying art 'willy-nilly.” Tastes change, he said.

The latest unveiling follows restoration of the section of the mural on the north wall in 2011 and a second section on the south wall in 2013.

The third restoration project was given the go-ahead this week by the City Council, which approved a contract with conservation and restoration firm FACL Inc. of Santa Barbara, Calif.

The project is being funded with a $20,000 grant from the National Endowment of the Arts; a $22,770 grant from the State Historic Resource Development Program; and $62,500 from United Fire Group charities, said Sandi Fowler, an assistant city manager.

Also to be revealed in the latest restoration are images that depict the replacement of superstition and witchcraft by hospital medicine, and an image - which Andringa calls childish - that shows a doctor talking to a naked patient next to newspaper headline, 'Sweden Defeats Syphilis” and a sports headline, 'Play Ball.”

Andringa said the restoration is bringing back to life 'an important historical document” - particularly because he said it shows how artists painted in the 1930s in Cedar Rapids in a much different way than their teacher, Grant Wood.

'It's marvelous that we have the whole spectrum here in the city at the Museum of Art and at City Hall,” he said.

The museum's Ulmer said the four walls are intended to be seen as one piece, and with each wall's restoration, the mural's whole story becomes clearer, he said.

At the same time, Andringa said he wasn't sure that today's public can 'read” what the Depression-era mural says.

The best of the art in his mind, he said, is the section on the north wall, situated behind the City Council dais as it had been behind the judge's bench in its day.

This section depicts images of Native Americans forced from the land and the work of slaves and laborers in juxtaposition to military forts, the family farm, and the arrival of industry.

'If you said that was what you were going to put behind the City Council, there would be an outrage. But that's what sits behind the City Council.