Rescue Public Murals Partners with ARTstor to Document Community Murals

From its conception, the Rescue Public Murals initiative has sought to archive the rich visual history of community murals as one means to preserve them.

Heritage Preservation is pleased to announce that it has partnered with ARTstor to add 1,500 mural images to their Digital Library this year. Heritage Preservation will contribute approximately 300 images of community murals collected as part of the Rescue Public Murals assessments. These photographs will include representative examples of damage to murals, illustrating the deterioration and decay that are endangering their survival.

The ARTstor Digital Library already contains more than more than 5,000 cataloged mural photographs contributed by Rescue Public Murals co-chair, Timothy Drescher. With support from the Getty Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts, Dr. Drescher will continue this work on behalf of Rescue Public Murals. He will identify photograph collections held by artists and others and assist them to catalog and deposit the images in ARTstor.

ARTstor, an established digital art library with more than a million images was started by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in 2001. It is a subscription service widely used by educators, scholars, and students at a variety of institutions including universities and colleges.