Abram Champanier Sites

One of the five restored Alice in Wonderland murals painted by Abram Champanier in 1938-40 is hung in the Cumberland Center at 100 N Portland Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11205.  The mural was originally created for the Gouverneur Hospital children’s ward in lower Manhattan, but was neglected and then restored in the early 1990s. The mural is listed on the New York Health and Hospitals Corporation art collection website, dated 2006. The present status of the mural is unknown to us. A 1994 New York Times article on WPA murals in NYC notes it is in the E.R. of Coney Island Hospital.

In 1936, Abram Champanier painted a large, multi-panel mural, entitled "Alice in Wonderland," in the children's ward of the old Gouverneur Hospital on Water Street, with funds provided by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The oil-on-canvas murals were all seven feet high, of varying widths, with subjects such as, "Alice Steps Out of a Book," "Alice Flies Over the East River Bridges" and "Alice and Her Friends in the Subway," with imaginative images in the social-realist style. Unfortunately, "the murals were left behind, exposed to rain and other infelicities, when the hospital was abandoned in 1961. Nearly two decades later, the building was sold, and demolition threatened. On the...

"In 1936, under the Works Progress Administration, the artist Abram Champanier created a series of murals for the children's ward . Champanier had done large commercial murals in the 20's for the Roxy Theater in New York and the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, among other works. For the hospital, he painted 16 panels on the theme of "Alice in Wonderland in New York." The oil-on-canvas murals are all seven feet high, but of varying widths. After the first panel, "Alice Steps Out of a Book," they cover subjects like "Alice Flies Over the East River Bridges" and "Alice and Her...

The Lincoln Hospital (also known as the Lincoln Medical and Health Center), has contained several WPA murals. During the 1930s, the Lincoln Hospital (then located at 141st St. and Southern Blvd. in the Bronx) received at least three WPA murals. Ruth Egri painted a large mural entitled "Disease, Cure and Prevention" for the hospital in 1938-1939; Eric Mose painted another WPA mural for the hospital in 1938; and Albert Kelly painted a multi-panel mural entitled "Circus Parade." In 1976, the hospital moved to its present location. Unfortunately, a conversation with an employee of Lincoln Medical Center in 2016 leads us to...

In 1938, artist Albert Kelly painted a multi-panel mural entitled "The Circus" (it may also have been known as "Circus Parade") for the children's ward at the old Lincoln Hospital (then located at 141st St. and Southern Blvd.) in the Bronx. In 1976, the hospital moved to its present location on 149th St. The mural’s current status is unknown, but it was probably lost in the demolition of the old hospital c. 2010.