San Francisco Will Spend $600,000 to Erase History

[David Lockmiller]

The New York Times published an opinion today on the order for destruction of an accurate historical artwork.

San Francisco Will Spend $600,000 to Erase History

The depression-era historical mural is located at George Washington High School that is less than two miles from where I live.

The San Francisco school board reached a unanimous decision on Tuesday night (June 25, 2019) to spend at least $600,000 of taxpayer money to destroy it.

Victor Arnautoff, the Russian immigrant who made the paintings in question, was perhaps the most important muralist in the Bay Area during the Depression. Thanks to President Franklin Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration, he had the opportunity to make some enduring public artworks. Among them is “City Life” in Coit Tower (San Francisco).

His freshly banned work, “Life of Washington,” does not show the clichéd image of our first president kneeling in prayer at Valley Forge. Instead, the 13-panel, 1,600-square-foot mural, which was painted in 1936 in the just-built George Washington High School, depicts his slaves picking cotton in the fields of Mount Vernon and a group of colonizers walking past the corpse of a Native American.

“This is a radical and critical work of art,” the school’s alumni association argued. “There are many New Deal murals depicting the founding of our country; very few even acknowledge slavery or the Native genocide. The Arnautoff murals should be preserved for their artistic, historical and educational value. Whitewashing them will simply result in another ‘whitewash’ of the full truth about American history.”

[I agree with the school’s alumni association.]

“At the time, high school history classes typically ignored the incongruity that Washington and others among the nation’s founders subscribed to the declaration that ‘all men are created equal’ and yet owned other human beings as chattel,” Robert W. Cherny writes in “Victor Arnautoff and the Politics of Art.”

Over the past months, art historians, New Deal scholars and even a group called the Congress of Russian Americans have tried to make exactly that point.

Such appeals to reason and history failed to sway the school board. On Tuesday, the school board voted unanimously to paint them over.

Arnautoff was interrogated in 1956 by the House Un-American Activities Committee for drawing a caricature of Vice President Richard Nixon.

[I would suggest reading many of the New York Times Comments Picks on this opinion piece published by the New York Times today.]

[AussieMick]

$600,000 ? I know its a big mural and the price of a can of paint is always far more than I expect ... but $600,000 ?

[David Lockmiller]

$600,000 ? I know its a big mural and the price of a can of paint is always far more than I expect ... but $600,000 ?

By the way, if you're wondering why it would cost several hundred thousand dollars to get rid of the mural, here's your answer: Officials are required to conduct environmental impact reports before they take any action.

(Source: Activists Want a Problematic Mural of George Washington Destroyed. It Will Cost a High School $600,000.

The artist wanted students to learn about Washington's flaws. How traumatizing.
ROBBY SOAVE | 6.20.2019)

[JMadonna]

They should spend it on cleaning the streets.

[LincolnMan]

They should spend it on cleaning the streets.

Agree. I was there 3 years ago. I don’t want to go back until it gets cleaned up.

[L Verge]

If you think that price tag is high, wait until the activists demand that we destroy Mt. Rushmore and Stone Mountain...

BTW: Has Ms. Pelosi expressed an opinion on this desecration of history in a city that keeps her in office?

[LincolnMan]

If you think that price tag is high, wait until the activists demand that we destroy Mt. Rushmore and Stone Mountain...

BTW: Has Ms. Pelosi expressed an opinion on this desecration of history in a city that keeps her in office?

Sad. Truly sad.

[Gene C]

Seems like it's the San Francisco Board of Education that needs educating.

History has it's ugly as well as it's virtuous side to it. They are covering up an opportunity to educate and to teach young people how to think for themselves.

[L Verge]

Seems like it's the San Francisco Board of Education that needs educating.

History has it's ugly as well as it's virtuous side to it. They are covering up an opportunity to educate and to teach young people how to think for themselves.

I'm not sure that the folks who seem in control now are the least bit interested in teaching how to think for one's self. I think there may be a more sinister force at work within many of our communities, and I have occasion to watch it within my own environment nearly every day.

[LincolnMan]

Seems like it's the San Francisco Board of Education that needs educating.

History has it's ugly as well as it's virtuous side to it. They are covering up an opportunity to educate and to teach young people how to think for themselves.

I'm not sure that the folks who seem in control now are the least bit interested in teaching how to think for one's self. I think there may be a more sinister force at work within many of our communities, and I have occasion to watch it within my own environment nearly every day.

Agree.

[JMadonna]

If you think that price tag is high, wait until the activists demand that we destroy Mt. Rushmore and Stone Mountain...

Don't know about Mt. Rushmore but they've already started demanding Stone Mountain be defaced. State of Georgia will have none of that.

[L Verge]

If you think that price tag is high, wait until the activists demand that we destroy Mt. Rushmore and Stone Mountain...

Don't know about Mt. Rushmore but they've already started demanding Stone Mountain be defaced. State of Georgia will have none of that.

I hope you're right about Georgia defending this magnificent piece of work, but as in days of yore (150+ years ago), the right of a state to protect its property (and let's keep the slavery issue out of this) may not apply.

[David Lockmiller]

A San Francisco Unified School District Board meeting took place on August 13, 2019 for and against the Arnautoff murals at Washington High School. The board voted to cover these murals.

One of the comments that was made during that meeting was about Diego Rivera's murals "History of Mexico", located in the stairway and corridor walls at the National Palace in Mexico City. Some of the images in these murals show enslavement, repression and torture of the Aztecs by the Spaniards. Teachers bring their students to learn about the history of their country.

Documentary of Diego Rivera Mural in National Palace

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[Gene C]

What a super idea.
Cover up history, what a great way to learn.

[David Lockmiller]

NY Review of Books Article on Washington High Arnautoff Murals