City Hall: Ballin Murals – Burbank CA

Description

Artist Hugo Ballin painted two murals for City Hall in Burbank, CA. Ballin likely received some funding from the Works Projects Administration (WPA) Art Project prior to its termination in 1943. Both murals were fully restored in 2001.

“Burbank Industry” (8′ x 24′) is located in the City Hall rotunda. It is “a painting with multiple planes that marked the passage of time, each layer representing a phase in Burbank’s transformation from a small community of farmers to a center of film production to the capitol of the aviation industry. Although Burbank’s indigenous and Mexican past is notably absent from Ballin’s history, in each layer of the mural he featured everyday people and workers in Burbank’s various industries as his subjects” (Luce, “Burbank City Hall”).

“Four Freedoms” (11′ x 22′) is located in the City Council Chamber. In this mural, Ballin also “used everyday people to illustrate President Roosevelt’s ‘Four Freedoms’ – freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear – values outlined in his 1941 State of the Union address as those fundamental to democracy, and values that the United States should fight for at home and abroad. […] [I]n depicting the ‘Freedom of Worship,’ Ballin included a Catholic pontiff and a monk, Jews holding a Torah and blowing a shofar, and even a Native American ‘protecting the flame’…” (Luce, “Burbank City Hall”).

Ballin’s murals appear throughout the Los Angeles region, including at Griffith Observatory, the Wilshire Boulevard Temple, the Los Angeles Times Building, and Los Angeles City Hall Council Chambers. His other New Deal–funded works in the region include the mural “Rudimentary Education” at El Rodeo Elementary School in Beverly Hills, CA.

Note: In 1939, the Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project (WPA-FAP) was renamed the Work Projects Administration Art Program (WPAAP) as the result of a federal reorganization.