City of Hope: Guston & Kadish Mural – Duarte CA

Description

Philip Guston (born Philip Goldstein) and Reuben Kadish painted a large mural for the Los Angeles Tubercular Sanatorium in Duarte, CA, the site of today’s City of Hope. Completed in 1936, the mural was funded by the Federal Art Project (FAP). It is located in the Visitor Services Center.

“This T-shaped painting surrounding a doorway includes more than 30 nude and semi-nude figures depicting the sweeping progression of human life. To the left is the energy and hopefulness of youth, while on the right the scenes are of decline and disappointment. Connecting the two sections is a group of figures over the door representing the arts. The mural was in part inspired by Luca Signorelli’s fresco series at the Orvieto Cathedral in Italy (1499-1504). The building was originally a library, and then spent many years as the John Howard Grace Graphic Arts Building. In June, 1998, the new Visitor Services Center opened and conservation work on the mural completed by Edwardo P. Sanchez of the J. Paul Getty Museum in collaboration with private conservator Aneta Zebala and her assistant Marisa Kuizenga” (Dunitz, p. 339).

Guston painted New Deal murals in Georgia, Washington, D.C., and New York (Dunitz, p. 367). Kadish would end up heading San Francisco’s FAP mural division (Dunitz, p. 372).

Myer Shaffer also painted a mural for the Sanatorium library in 1936, but it was subsequently whitewashed.