- City:
- Pasadena, CA
- Site Type:
- Art Works, Murals
- New Deal Agencies:
- Arts Programs, Federal Arts Project (FAP), Public Works of Art Project (PWAP)
- Started:
- 1934
- Completed:
- 1942
- Artist:
- Frank Tolles Chamberlin
- Quality of Information:
- Moderate
- Site Survival:
- Extant
Description
This 16′ x 40′, oil on canvas mural, “Modern Education/School Activities,” was completed in 1942 by Frank Tolles Chamberlin after seven years of intermittent work. He received funding from the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) in 1934 and from the Federal Art Project (FAP) from 1935. The mural adorns the school library. The artist described its theme as “youth and its activities.” According to Pasadena News Now, “With a typical Southern California landscape as a backdrop, forty-nine students of different backgrounds participate in a number of activities such as chemistry, sculpture, radio transmission, horseback riding and blacksmithing. The mural conveys the artist’s passion and faith in the power of education.” The mural received much-needed restoration work in 2017.
Source notes
New Deal Art Registry /CaliforniaLeads.pdf
Description by the artist at:
www.publicartinla.com
https://www.pasadenanow.com/main/community-raises-100000-to-carefully-restore-damaged-new-deal-era-mural-at-mckinley-school/#.WUFi9FKZNsM
Robin J. Dunitz, Street Gallery: Guide to 1000 Los Angeles Murals (RJD Enterprises, 1998), p. 326.
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Submit More Information or Photographs for this New Deal Site4 comments on “McKinley Elementary School Mural – Pasadena CA”
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Diane Nunez
Rachel
Rudy Martinez
Lisa French
Im probably grasping at straws but i was wondering how i can look at pictures of McKinley Junior High the year i graduated. i would really appreciate the help. The year was 1972. Thank you for your time.
Hi Diane — Sorry that we don’t have photos for you. Best of luck on your search!
Hello,
I have read that muralist, Myer Shaffer, painted a fresco at “McKinley Middle School” in S. Pasadena, possibly before Chamberlin. Two of Shaffer’s late 1930s WPA murals, one at the L. A. Tuberculosis Sanatorium in Duarte, (now City of Hope), and the other at the Mount Sinai Home for the Chronic Invalids in East Los Angeles (no longer exists), were whitewashed by the end of 1938; most likely, too political.
Do you have any information about his mural at McKinley?
I’ve thought about this mural (saw it when I was a student in 1970). I’m relieved to find this web site and learn that it’s been preserved.