College Museum Notes

Abstract

The history of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), that brought murals by some of the nation's foremost painters to the walls of government buildings, was recalled recently when a William Gropper work was rescued by WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY. Two Gropper murals, each six feet by twenty feet, portraying Detroit automobile assembly operations, were painted in 1941 and hung in the lobby of the old Northwestern Station U.S. Post Office on Joy Road near Grand River. A Wayne State art professor, Richard Bilaitis, interceded on behalf of the University when he learned of the planned demolition of the post office to make way for an expressway. [What irony!—P.E.] He lived in the neighborhood as a child and was familiar with the murals, which he considered to be among the finest of Gropper's works. With the help of William Bostick, Administrator of the Detroit Institute of Arts, and Karel Yasko, Special Assistant to the Commissioner of the Public Buildings Service of the U.S. General Services Administration, Bilaitis was able to obtain the murals for the University. The transfer from the old post office was financed through the National Endowment for the Arts. New York art restorer Hiram H. Hoelzer removed the murals. (Fig. 1)