Scores show up to examine the ‘Life of Washington’ mural.
A historic mural at San Francisco’s Washington High School opened briefly to the public Thursday for the first time since June, when school board members voted to whitewash the Depressionera work and catapulted themselves into a national debate over art and censorship.
More than 100 people jammed into the school, eager to see “Life of Washington” — actually a set of 13 frescoes — that would be on view for two hours only, from 1 to 3 p.m.
They snapped photos and pointed at scenes within the vast mural that the board has deemed offensive, and which some students have called disrespectful, because of two scenes in particular.
One depicts an African American man seated on a dock shucking corn as a white man points him out, as if to a buyer, and the other is of a Native American who lies dead, seemingly murdered.
On Thursday, Peter Arnautoff of Marin, the muralist’s grandson, was at Washington High with his son, Paul Arnautoff of San Francisco, hoping to shed light on the intentions of his grandfather, Victor Arnautoff. Born in Russia in 1896, Victor Arnautoff fled after the Bolshevik revolution, landing in Mexico and studying with famed muralist Diego Rivera. He died in 1979.
“I fully understand the sensitivity of seeing people in that (degraded) state,” Peter Arnautoff said. “That is precisely why my grandfather tried to portray this. Because history was
being glossed over. He needed to have a counternarrative.” As for students and their teachers, he said, the mural should offer “a teachable moment.”
As they enter school each morning, Washington High students climb a broad set of stairs between two walls on which the 1,600squarefoot painting depicts, in vivid colors, real and imagined scenes from the 18th century life of the first president.
There are the two controversial scenes — intended, mural supporters say, to show an unvarnished portrayal of the realities of Washington’s day.
Most of those who packed into the high school Thursday were vocal in their support of the mural.
“They’re idiots!” a man called out from across the crowded space, referring to the school board that voted 6to0 on June 25 to paint over the murals. A seventh board member, Rachel Norton, was absent.
Artist Carol Denney of Berkeley called the frescoes an “outstanding example of New Deal art,” and said the vast work is “so much more impressive in person than seeing just a piece of it.”
She had read Robert Cherny’s biography of Arnautoff and said she had learned from it that the mural “was a critical view of Washington’s life, and the depiction of African Americans and Native Americans was intended to convey the oppression of the times.”
“It’s astounding to me that anyone would want to destroy them,” she said.
Linda FadekiRichardson of San Francisco, a Nigerian American and one of the few black people who came to look at the frescoes, absolutely wants them destroyed.
“These murals are very offensive to me,” she said, pointing to the scene of the Native American lying dead, and that of the African American man shucking corn. “If you’re a kid, you are constantly reminded that you are nothing. That you’re a slave. You feel no sense of belonging. It creates anger.”
School board members expressed similar concerns when making their decision to paint over the mural. The decision is “about righting a wrong,” school board member Alison Collins said in June.
“It might be art, and it can also be racist; it can be both,” Collins said at the time.
Students were offended by the images, according to the board, whose members said that destroying the piece would be a way to repair racial injustices against African Americans and Native Americans.
Few, if any, students showed up at Thursday’s viewing. Before the June vote, student Briana King told district officials the scenes were “rude and disrespectful.”
Critics of “Life of Washington” are not the first Bay Area residents to call for painting over an Arnautoff mural — or the first to crowd in for a closer look.
In 1932, the Bay Area worked itself into a similar lather over the painter’s first solo commission, a set of frescoes for the Palo Alto Medical Clinic. In that work, Arnautoff painted four frescoes in color depicting modern medical techniques, such as the use of a fluoroscope to diagnose illness. Four smaller frescoes in black, white and gray showed outmoded medical methods, including a witch doctor exorcising evil spirits and a person pressing a board against an infant’s head to produce a healthy sloping forehead.
But the frescoes were flawed, according to sensibilities of the time, because some of the patients depicted were only partially clothed. Breasts were visible. Offense was taken.
“The startling result has set this little college town by the ears!” a Chronicle reporter wrote on Aug. 21, 1932, in a story called “Murals and Morals: Palo Alto’s Pulse Quickens,” that described drivers causing traffic jams along Homer Avenue as they slowed down to peer at the murals.
Fritz Roth, hired as a surgeon at the new Palo Alto clinic, threatened to whitewash the mural before he would work there.
But those who appreciated the Arnautoff work prevailed, and the murals stayed. Today they are being restored, said the artist’s grandson.
Victor Arnautoff and Diego Rivera came to San Francisco in 1931. Their works can be found throughout the city and include an Arnautoff fresco in Coit Tower and a Rivera mural at City College of San Francisco.
Painting over “Life of Washington” would cost at least $600,000, and an environmental review would take many months, the district has said. Because of the time and expense, the board has said it will also consider masking the work with curtains.
But the board may face another hurdle in covering up the artwork. Mural supporters are planning a 2020 ballot measure. The measure would prevent the school board from destroying “Life of Washington” or other New Deal murals without first getting approval from the Arts Commission and the Board of Supervisors or from the voters.
On Thursday, the ballot measure group said they had asked likely San Francisco voters how they felt about the school board “voting to spend $600,000 of school funds to permanently paint over 13 historic murals ...”
It’s unclear how many people responded to the survey. But the backers said more than threequarters of them responded that they wouldn’t like it at all.
Local supporters could tap into national and international backers in their campaign to preserve the artwork. More than 400 educators and academics from around the world signed a petition to protect it.
The petition accused the board of voting “to destroy a significant monument of antiracism. This is a gross violation of logic and sense.”
On Thursday, Noel Blincoe, a retired biomedical engineer from Pacifica, stood amid the frescoes and listened to Peter Arnautoff speak about his grandfather’s vision and how he hoped to save the work.
“You got hope?” Blincoe called out. Because destroying the art, he said, “would be horrible.”
“I fully understand the sensitivity of seeing people in that (degraded) state. That is precisely why my grandfather tried to portray this. Because history was being glossed over.” Peter Arnautoff, the muralist’s grandson, explaining the purpose of the paintings