The Royal Oak Schools Murals Project - Preparing for the future, while preserving the past ...
About The Murals:
Measuring about 11 by 22 feet, restoration of the Royal Oak murals will be a major undertaking. These three oil-on-canvas works were designated as “of historic interest” by the Royal Oak Historical Commission in 1980.
The Themes:
Mural 2 offers a glimpse of the community in the mid-1930s, including Royal Oak High School, along with a look at various professions that graduates might pursue. Mural 1: The naming of Royal Oak, with Michigan’s first governor, Lewis Cass, in the center. Mural 3: The cultural arts.
The Artists:
Two artists painted the oil-on-canvas Royal Oak murals, accounting for the differing styles of the artworks. The mural 2 was painted by Bronislaw Makielski, who took over the project after Andrew Maglia had worked on the first two paintings. Maglia bowed out when funding ran out; when funding was renewed, Makielski was commissioned to complete the project.
A newspaper article from 1979 — the year the murals were put into storage — notes that Maglia was paid $25 to $30 a week by the WPA. According to an interview in that newspaper, the Royal Oak murals were his only WPA projects. His widow, Concetta, said that Maglia completed one of the murals and worked on the second, but didn’t complete that one.
Maglia later concentrated on mosaics and stained-glass windows in churches in the Detroit area.
Born in Cantania, Sicily, Maglia emigrated to the U.S. during the 1920s. He died of cancer in 1974.
The second artist, Bronislaw Makielski, was born in 1901 in South Bend, Ind. The 1979 newspaper article offered a bit of his history, including the fact that his work was “often exhibited” at the Detroit Institute
of Arts.
What is the WPA?:
The federal Works Progress Administration was established in 1935 as a relief program for the unemployed during the Depression. The agency was renamed Works Projects Administration in 1939, but the goal remained the same: job creation. During its eight years of existence, about 8.5 million people were employed to work on WPA projects across the country. The agency spent more than $11 billion on job programs before being canceled in 1943.
According to the Indiana University Library Web site, 1,410,000 individual projects were funded by the WPA. Those projects including building 651,087 miles of highways, roads and streets; construction, repair or improvements to 124,031 bridges, 125,110 public buildings, 8,192 parks and 853 airport landing fields.
The arts were not ignored by the WPA.
Artists, musicians and writers were employed by the WPA’s Federal Arts Project across the
country. Guidebooks were written, archives were organized and research was conducted by writers; in addition, theatrical productions and musical compositions were all included in the WPA realm.
Artists were employed to create murals, canvases and sculptures for public buildings across the United States. PBS Online notes that 2,566 murals and 17,744 pieces of sculpture were created in WPA projects during this era. The Royal Oak murals are examples of the kinds of works that we can still enjoy today, thanks to the WPA.