- City:
- Catonsville, MD
- Site Type:
- Art Works, Murals
- New Deal Agencies:
- Arts Programs, Treasury Section of Fine Arts (TSFA)
- Artist:
- Avery Johnson
Description
This mural “Incidents in the History of Catonsville” by Avery Johnson was completed with Section of Fine Arts funds in 1942.
Source notes
Originally posted in the New Deal Art RegistryAt this Location:
Site Details
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Regarding, “incidents in the history of Catonsville,” I say not, “Yes!” But “Hell, yes!” Get rid of it, and every display of Slave and master that exists in and on public buildings! That horrid, demeaning, Godless, history of this country should not be memorialized or highlighted in any way!
“Until the lion tells the story, the hunter will always be the hero.”
Wanting to remove a mural only because it depicts a terrible aspect of our history is without merit. It’s unfortunate that they’re unwilling to support the inclusion of information providing context, while retaining an important work of art that depicts a horrendous period of our history.
Remove artwork or statuary that glorifies slavery or Confederacy but leave those that simply depict life as it actually was
Thankfully, this mural that depicted chattel slavery is no longer on display at the Catonsville Post Office.
The mural depicted quite a number of aspects of Catonsville’s history, though it’s much easier to ignore all aspects of context, artistic intent included, when many people want the art in public spaces to be roughly as challenging as crib mobiles.
Are we sanitizing our history by removing a mural that showed slavery? Is it better to remove all evidence of the many bad things that happened in U.S. history? Does that help us to learn, or remember? When the library just down the street re-opens, should we discard all the books that talk about slavery?