- City:
- Long Beach, CA
- Site Type:
- Murals, Art Works
- New Deal Agencies:
- Federal Arts Project (FAP), Arts Programs
- Completed:
- 1937
- Artists:
- Bessie Pierce Heller, Suzanne Miller
- Quality of Information:
- Good
- Marked:
- Yes
- Site Survival:
- Extant
Description
Suzanne Miller painted a nine-panel series of murals in 1937 under the auspices of the WPA Federal Art Project (FAP). Known both as “Children’s Stories” and “Scenes from English Language Literature,” the murals were originally located at the old Lincoln Park Main Library in Long Beach, CA. After it burned down, the murals were relocated to the new Billie Jean King Main Library.
The murals include scenes drawn from Hiawatha (Longfellow), Il Penseroso (Milton), Vicar of Wakefield (Goldsmith), Rip Van Winkle (Irving), King Solomon (Old Testament), Man with the Hoe (Markham), Alice in Wonderland (Carroll), Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (Gray), Complete Angler (Walton), Faerie Queene (Spenser), Pilgrim’s Progress (Bunyan), L’Allegro (Milton), Lady of Shalot (Tennyson), The Tempest (Shakespeare), and Canterbury Tales (Chaucer).
Miller also completed murals at Jane Addams Elementary School and Franklin Classical Middle School in Long Beach.
Source notes
Originally posted on the New Deal Art Registry
Robin J. Dunitz, Street Gallery: Guide to 1000 Los Angeles Murals (RJD Enterprises, 1998), p. 251.
Site originally submitted by Richard Walker on October 13, 2014.
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