About Rescue Public Murals

Rescue Public Murals, based at the national nonprofit organization Heritage Preservation, seeks to bring public attention to U.S. murals, document their unique artistic and historic contributions, and secure the expertise and support to save them. The project was officially launched in December 2006. Assisted by a national committee of Advisers, including muralists, conservators, art historians, and public art professionals, it has initiated the following projects:

Assessments: to date Rescue Public Murals has brought conservators and artists together to evaluate the condition of 16 murals in 11 sites across the country. The assessment teams documented what steps will be needed to preserve these murals.
Restoration: in fall 2009, Rescue Public Murals completed its first restoration project of Eva Cockcroft’s Homage to Seurat: La Grande Jatte in Harlem.
Best practices for mural creation: Rescue Public Murals is working with artists, conservators, conservation researchers, public art programs, and paint manufactures to identify techniques and materials that will ensure the longest life for new outdoor murals.
Advocacy: Rescue Public Murals tracks murals in the news and mural programs and initiatives across the U.S. Constituents are encouraged to notify Rescue Public Murals of murals that are deteriorated or at risk for destruction.
Documentation: because it is not possible to save all outdoor murals, Rescue Public Murals has a partnership with the ARTstor Digital Library to save digital images and information about murals and to make them available for noncommercial, educational use. In 2011, about 1,000 images collected by Rescue Public Murals will be available in ARTstor adding to the 5,000 mural images in the Community Murals collection contributed by Rescue Public Murals co-chair, Dr. Timothy Drescher.

While Rescue Public Murals recognizes the significant historic and artistic value of public murals within structures, the project’s initial priority will be murals that are outdoors and thus especially vulnerable.

Rescue Public Murals has received funding from the Getty Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Booth Heritage Foundation, Friends of Heritage Preservation, and the Wyeth Foundation for American Art.

For more information contact rescuepublicmurals(a)heritagepreservation.org or sign up for Rescue Public Murals news and updates.

Co-Chairs:

Dr. Timothy W. Drescher, Independent Scholar, former co-editor of Community Murals magazine, Berkeley, California. Dr. Drescher has been studying and documenting community murals since 1972, was co-editor of Community Murals magazine from 1976 to 1987, and is the author of San Francisco Bay Area Murals: Communities Create Their Muses, 1904-1997. He wrote the Afterward to the revised edition of Toward A People’s Art, and consults and lectures widely on murals. Dr. Drescher has a Ph.D. in English Literature and Art History from the University of Wisconsin.

Will Shank, Independent Conservator and Curator, Barcelona, Spain. Mr. Shank was head of conservation at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art from 1990 until 2000. He was the recipient in 2005 of the Booth Family Rome Prize for Conservation/Historic Preservation at the American Academy in Rome, where he studied worldwide policies on the care of modern murals. Mr. Shank was trained in conservation at Harvard University, Villa Schifanoia in Florence, and the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, where he also received an M.A. in art history.

Director:

Kristen Overbeck Laise, Heritage Preservation. Ms. Laise, Heritage Preservation's Vice President, Collections Care Programs, directs Rescue Public Murals. She most recently directed the Heritage Health Index, the first national survey of the condition of collections in U.S. museums, libraries, and archives. She previously coordinated the Conservation Assessment Program, a technical assistance program that provides professional conservation advice to small and mid-sized museums. Ms. Laise holds an M.A. in Art History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.