Rescue Public Murals Completes First Mural Restoration

from left: Ariel Mercado, Alexandra Unthank , Suzanne Deal Booth, and Harriet Irgang Alden

Rescue Public Murals has successfully completed its first mural restoration. On Saturday, October 10, 2009, the restored Homage to Seurat: La Grande Jatte in Harlem was officially rededicated. The mural covers two 30’ x 30’ sections of the apartment building walls adjacent to Hope Steven Garden, which was the site of the rededication celebration. Homage to Seurat, painted in 1986 by the late community muralist, Eva Cockcroft (1936-1999), is her only remaining mural in New York City. Originally painted as part of the Artists in the Garden a project of GreenThumb, a community gardening program sponsored by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, the mural had faded significantly and was beginning to flake away. Without attention, the mural would have disappeared within a few years – in fact, some local residents mentioned that they had forgotten a mural was even in their neighborhood.

The mural was restored by a team led by Eva Cockcroft’s colleague Janet Braun-Reinitz in consultation with conservator Harriet Irgang-Alden from Rustin Levenson Art Conservation in New York City. At the rededication ceremony they reported that the project took 35 days and 1,235 hours to complete, including 215 hours donated by volunteers. It involved custom mixing a total of 72 Golden Artist Colors paints to match the colors shown in photographs taken when the mural was newly painted. The artists presented samples of each of these colors to Rescue Public Murals for its archives. In total, about 18 gallons of paint, sealer, and varnish were used on the restoration along with 51 brushes.

Joining the gardeners and artists in the ribbon cutting ceremony was Suzanne Deal Booth president of Friends of Heritage Preservation, a private charitable group that seeks to promote cultural identity through the preservation of significant endangered artistic and historic works, artifacts, and sites, that funded the restoration and Christopher Farrell, Creative Director at Golden Artists Colors , another supporter of the project.

Thanks to the restoration, the mural is again a vibrant presence on the corner of Amsterdam Avenue at West 142nd Street. It will also remain as colorful a backdrop to the community garden, which has likewise been safeguarded as a neighborhood green space by the Manhattan Land Trust. "Like our garden, which was established in 1983 and is now permanent, Homage to Seurat has become a beloved fixture in our Hamilton Heights neighborhood," says garden representative Ginny Outlaw. "We are very pleased that the mural has been restored to its former beauty."

---