A Gift to America: Maxo Vanka and the Millvale Murals

Posted by on Nov 29, 2021 in | Comments Off on A Gift to America: Maxo Vanka and the Millvale Murals “This is my gift to America,” declared Croatian artist Maksimilijan “Maxo” Vanka (1889–1963) in 1941, when he completed a vast mural cycle for a small Catholic church in Millvale, Pennsylvania, a working-class town just across the river from Pittsburgh. A recent émigré, Vanka had not yet been in the United States a full decade when he completed the 4,500 square feet of wall painting for St....
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Editor’s Letter

Posted by on Nov 29, 2021 in | Comments Off on Editor’s Letter Pennsylvania is home to some of the most acclaimed mural paintings in the nation, including those in our own State Capitol created by Violet Oakley, the first woman in the country to receive a public mural commission in 1902 (see “To Form a More Perfect Union,” Fall 2019), and those found on the walls of many U.S. post offices in the state, installed as part of public work projects between 1934...
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Community Initiative Awards Honor Historic Preservation Successes

Posted by on Mar 25, 2021 in | Comments Off on Community Initiative Awards Honor Historic Preservation Successes The Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office (PA SHPO) has announced its Community Initiative Awards for 2020. These awards recognize individuals, organizations, municipalities, agencies and others for their hard work and dedication in achieving preservation successes throughout the commonwealth. The awards are a program of PA SHPO’s innovative statewide historic preservation plan,...
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To Form a More Perfect Union: Violet Oakley’s Murals in the Pennsylvania Senate Chamber

Posted by on Apr 15, 2020 in | Comments Off on To Form a More Perfect Union: Violet Oakley’s Murals in the Pennsylvania Senate Chamber At breakfast tables on Sunday morning, December 3, 1911, readers of The New York Times were confronted with a surprising headline running across the magazine section: “A WOMAN CHOSEN TO COMPLETE THE ABBEY PAINTINGS.” Four months earlier, the news that the American artist Edwin Austin Abbey (1852–1911) had passed away in London raised speculation about who would receive the remainder of his...
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Editor’s Letter

Posted by on Apr 15, 2020 in | Comments Off on Editor’s Letter August 18, 2020, will mark the centennial of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution, guaranteeing women the right to vote. In issues of Pennsylvania Heritage leading to this significant anniversary, we will be featuring articles on the early 20th-century movement that led to suffrage as it played out in Pennsylvania, as well as the stories of women’s achievements in the Keystone...
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Violet Oakley, Lady Mural Painter

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Violet Oakley, Lady Mural Painter When Violet Oak­ley accepted the commission – and challenge – of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to decorate the State Capitol then under con­struction in Harrisburg, she announced that the subject of her mural series would be “The Romance of the Found­ing of the State.” In 1902, the ardent lady mural painter, then twenty-eight years old and the only one of her kind,...
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Rediscovering the People’s Art: New Deal Murals in Pennsylvania’s Post Offices

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Rediscovering the People’s Art: New Deal Murals in Pennsylvania’s Post Offices On a February morning in 1937, artist George Warren Rickey (1907-2002) and a group of four men met at the post office in Selinsgrove, Snyder County. Armed with cloth-covered rolling pins, the men attached Rickey’s mural entitled Susquehanna Trail to one of the lobby’s end walls. After six hours, they transformed the entire blank white wall, from marble wainscoting to ceiling, into a...
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