Untitled Document

IPS moves murals to new school

By Aldrich M. Tan
aldrich.tan@indystar.com

2:27 PM July 17, 2006

Artwork from Brookside Elementary School 54, 3150 E. 10th St., moved to its new home today ahead of the wrecking ball.

A crane moved two murals by local artist Clifton Wheeler that graced the old building’s third floor for 83 years to their new home on the first floor of the school’s new building, located across the parking lot.

The original building will be demolished at the end of August, spokeswoman Marilyn Shank said. School 54’s new building, located across the parking lot from the original building, will open this fall.

“We are preserving the school’s past,” spokeswoman Kim Hooper said. “These murals bring a sense of history. They preserve the old while being appreciated by the new.”

Brookside’s class of 1921 raised $700 for Wheeler to paint the idyllic pastoral landscape on the third floor, Shank said. It is the only fresco painting that IPS owns.

Wheeler painted the landscape directly onto the plaster wall, making the mural very thick and challenging to remove, said Tony Rajer, mural conservator and professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. The larger mural weighs 5,000 pounds while the smaller one weights 3,000 pounds.

Rajer worked with a team of students from Indiana University Bloomington in June to cut down the wall and then cover the murals with layers of foam and large sheets of plywood.

Rajer said he would re-install the mural in its new building this week. The murals will be on the first floor next to the new cafeteria.

The murals aren’t the only school artwork evading demolition. Painting by famous Hoosier artist T.C. Steele and other artists are in storage, Shank said. The paintings will be re-installed in the new building by fall.

“There was a strong effort to bring elements of the old building into the new building,” Shank said.

Other architectural artifacts that will move into the new building include gymnasium reliefs and the Dearborn entryway’s limestone columns, which will be in the new building’s media center.

The original column dividing the murals will not move, Shank said. A new column made out of concrete will be constructed in the new building for the murals.

“It won’t be as attractive,” she said, “but it will be just as sturdy.”