Hooper Avenue Elementary School: Macdonald-Wright Mosaic – Los Angeles CA

Description

This colorful mosaic by Stanton Macdonald-Wright is installed above the doors to the auditorium at Hooper Avenue Elementary School in Los Angeles, CA. Entitled “Products of Nature and Inventions of Man,” the mosaic was created under the auspices of the WPA Federal Art Project (FAP) in 1936-37.

A 1936 article in California Arts & Architecture described the partially completed work: “This mosaic mural will be approximately eight feet wide by seven feet high. It symbolizes the products of nature and the works of man. The mosaic, a form of mural decoration developed by the Federal Art Project in southern California, is proving greatly in demand. It is especially adaptable to the decoration of exterior walls, since it is impervious to the elements. Not even the strong California sunlight can fade its colors.”

Macdonald-Wright was supervisor for the Southern California division of the FAP from 1935 to 1943. He is considered “an important proponent of the nonrepresentational styles of art on the New Deal projects” (Kalfatovic, p. 370).

Macdonald-Wright’s other New Deal–funded works in the region include murals at the Public Library and City Hall in Santa Monica, as well as mosaics at Edison Middle School in Los Angeles and at the Community Center in South Gate.