Once upon a time it was (and still is) George Washington High School – public school in the city of San Francisco. This facility was opened on August 4, 1936 to serve as a secondary school for local residents. It was built on a budget of $8,000,000, on a nice site overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge.
Since the early days, the School lobby was decorated with colourful murals by Victor Arnautoff that had been commissioned by the Works Progress Administration in 1936 as part of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal projects for public buildings. A student of a famous muralist Diego Rivera, Arnautoff made the murals in the “buon fresco” style, depicting scenes from the life of George Washington. Murals were intended to teach students about the realities of history, which typically consists of not only glorious moments (like victorious fight of American colonists for freedom against British Empire), but also more controversial aspects (like black slave ownership by George Washington himself or fights of white settlers and US troops with American Indians). Back in ’30s (and up to, perhaps, late ’50s) the murals of Arnautoff were considered to be “progressive” by the USA left, primarily because they were dramatically different from the conventional “polished” representation of the USA history.
Here I should write a few lines about Victor Arnautoff as an artist and a person. He was born in Russian Empire in 1896 and since early age was showing an extraordinary talent for arts. However, his studies and his artist career were interrupted first by World War I and then by Russian Civil War, where he fought on the losing side of White Army. After the victory of Bolsheviks, Victor fled Soviet Russia to China and then to the USA, where in 1925 he was admitted to California School of Fine Arts, San Francisco. In 1929 Victor temporarily moved to Mexico (to work with famous Diego Rivera), then returned to San Francisco, where he continued his successful career of a muralist and a member of faculty of University of Stanford (Arts). Among many other artworks Victor Arnautoff created George Washington High School murals – a massive piece of work consisting of 13 large scale compositions representing life of the Revolutionary War Commander-in-Chief and later the first US president George Washington.
Why have these murals eventually become so unpopular among so-called “progressive social justice warriors” and some ethnic minority activists? Well, in short, because they tell the truth about George Washington and his time and that this truth is considered to be “too ugly and too stressful to comprehend” for certain sensitive individuals – it hurt their feelings too much.
In the ’60s and ’70s, a wave of student activism denounced Arnautoff’s images as offensive to black and Native American students, demanding that the Life of George Washington to be taken down. At that time, the young African American artist Dewey Crumpler was brought to the School to create a “response mural” to Arnautoff’s cycle, dubbed Multi-Ethnic Heritage, with panels symbolizing the historic struggles of Asian Americans, African Americans, Latin Americans, Native Americans, etc.
For some time this approach was successful. However, later the next generation of “fighters for total equality” claimed yet again that even the addition of balancing murals of Dewey Crumpler and the fact that Mr. Arnautoff himself was actually sympathetic to black slaves and suffering of Native population of America is just “not enough”. Not enough because some African Americans and Native Americans are still hurt by Mr. Arnautoff’s images “a great deal”…
Eventually an amazing hysterical campaign to destroy the “racist and offensive murals” was orchestrated by “justice activists” (see e.g. links to a few truly appalling videos at the end of this article). This campaign had influenced the School Board so much, that after lengthy deliberation, they made a radical decision to PAINT OVER the murals…
Were there any counterarguments? Of course there were! I particularly liked the one based on the direct comparison of Arnautoff’s artwork destruction with Nazi Third Reich time practices. Indeed, you may find it almost impossible to convince yourself that there is any fundamental difference between these two situations: in Nazi case the books, which the regime did not like (or found offensive), were burned, whereas in the San Francisco case, the art, which some people do not like (or find offensive) is set to be destroyed.
Well, now I will try adding my two cent contribution to this ongoing debate by making some further comments on the issue (although I am quite sure that you should be able to find similar thoughts/arguments in the articles provided below):
1) By allowing George Washington School murals destruction we essentially do a double-dip attack on inconvenient history not only trying to forget George Washington’s multi-facet legacy, but also erasing memories of post-depression period of late ‘30s which this artwork represents.
2) Ethnic activists insisting on murals to be painted over should realise that they actually betraying… their own friends (and/or allies). Indeed, slavery in the USA was abandoned not due to an uprising of black slaves themselves, but as a result of a bloody Civil War, which, in turn, was due to a realisation by the majority of white population of the USA (well, at least of the Union part), that slavery is inhumane and is hampering the development of their country. Most of the fighters of the Union Army truly believed that they were continuing the great fight for freedom, started by George Washington and his supporters.
3) Without any doubt, Victor Arnautoff himself was very sympathetic to troubles of African and Native Americans. There may be a sad irony in the fact, that Mr. Arnautoff, who was fighting against Soviet Russia in his early twenties, later changed his political views so comprehensively that he decided to return to the USSR in 1963. In this instance, I will remind interested readers a rather well-known fact, that the Soviet Union was one of the strongest supporters of internationalism and equal rights for all ethnic minorities. This may had been one of the key factors, which influenced the artist’s decision to leave the USA and move back to Russia.
4) Trying to forget the lessons of history is similar to pretending that certain fundamental laws of physics just cease to exist at our will. But while doing such things, we are walking on a very thin ice: there may be an illusion of an initial success, but, in fact, an eventual disaster is inevitable.
When I was about to finish this essay I learned some encouraging news. Apparently the backlash against the School’s “final” decision to paint over the murals was so significant (supporters of “Save the murals” movement now include even the creator of the so-called response mural – the artist Dewey Crumpler himself), that George Washington School Board has now decided to reconsider their fate.
So maybe, just maybe, the murals will be saved and the common sense together with the respectful attitude towards the past will still prevail… However, I still feel amazed that people of wisdom even have to have this truly ridiculous fight against a supersensitive generation of self-proclaimed “social justice warriors” and their puppeteers…
Still, we need to be strong, determined and fearless. And we shouldn’t stop fighting. And lest we forget!
— Relevant links —
Introduction: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/11/arts/design/george-washington-murals-ugly-history-debated.html
Decision to destroy: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/george-washington-mural-controversial-art-to-be-painted-over-at-san-francisco-high-school/
Dewey Crumpler’s opinion: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/san-francisco-mural-victor-arnautoff-dewey-crumpler-1596409
Latest news: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/10/arts/san-francisco-murals.html
Debate and hysteria around it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJlb5M3MiyY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2CRDg4nBCg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vyJpFtJMoE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9LIJoN_8uQ
New Tales from the country of Oz 