Hampshire County Courthouse Mural – Northampton MA

Description

Almost fifty years after he painted this mural, Alfred Crimi reflected on its origins and later developments:

“Most gratifying was the honor I received from the City of Northampton, Massachusetts, in the fall of 1980. In 1940 I had painted a mural for the Post Office Building in Northampton entitled ‘Work, Religion, and Education.’ This commission had been awarded through national competition under the auspices of the Section of Painting and Sculpture, Treasury Department, Washington, D.C. Now that the building was sold, the mural was taken down to be rolled up and sent to the Smithsonian Institution where it most likely would have been forgotten and gone the way of all flesh – like many others. This concerned me very much. Fortunately, the Northampton Historical Commission decided to keep the mural in the city and reinstall it in the courthouse.

…I am grateful to those who spearheaded the campaign and pursued it to a successful conclusion: Mayor David B. Musante, who formally proclaimed November 16-23, 1980, ‘Save the Mural Week’ and presented me with a Certificate of Merit on behalf of the City of Northampton ‘for introducing public art to the city’…”   (Crimi 1988)

Crimi was born in 1900 in Italy and came to the United States at the age of eleven. He attended art classes at the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in New York. He eventually studied fresco and encaustic painting in Rome and started teaching these techniques in 1934. Other major works include murals for the Key West FL aquarium, the US Post Office in Washington, and the Rutgers Presbyterian Church.