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,rtnw E> stern -"- UnlversltY Llbrar)' No. 4 -- 1192 TP.:E WORKS PROGRAM -- Works Pro;;ress Administration -- r release at 4 p.m. Thursday r1e 11, 1936 ~ Mural Presented at West Point Alumni Exercises. Annual alumni exercises at the United States Military Academy, held at st Point yesterday, were signalized by the presentation to the Academy of a mural, :icisive Battles of the World", General John J. Pershing, hero of the United State's rticipation in the World War, back at the Point to celebrate the fiftieth annivers- r of his graduation, accepted the mural in behalf of the academy. The mural was inted by Tom Loftin Johnson under the auspices of the Federal Art Project, of the rks Progress Administration. Presentation of the mural, which covers 2450 square feet of wall in Washgton Hall, was the high point of the annual alumni exercises, which were presided :lr by Major General William D. Connor, Superintendent of the Academy. The wPA tist, Mr. Johnson, described briefly his purpose in creating the mural. Executed in egg tempera on plaster, the mural has required over a year of t ~dy paintings for its completion, preceded by a year of research studi e s and sparation of de signs end s cale enlargements. The p;morwna of history, with bat_tles ich were de ciding fo.ctors thnt swayed the course of events, is its theme. gerly derived from Lord Crecy 1 s "Fift een Decisive Battles of nistory 11 • It is The first On the second floor, one large and a series of smaller rooms, give both informality and the advantage of pleasant and congenial groupings for various types of work. In the main gallery, long wall spaces provide an excellent ,, background for the mural sketches for several schools in Illinois which are one of the features of the exhibition, Digitized by Original from NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY No. 4 -- 1192 - 2 - sketches were made by Mr. Johnson in 1934 for the Public Works of .Art Project, which was followed by the WPA Federal Art Project. To finish the panel, 70 by 35 feet, took from April, 1935, to the present, about six months alone being needed to make ~the cartoons which were tre.nsferred to the wall for the final painting. Egg tempera done with earth colors is a permanent medium and gives a palette similar to the buon :resco. Of primary interest to .Americans is the section dealing with the World War, which shows Joffre, the hero of the first battle of the Marne. Beginning with the fall of Cyrus at Babylon in 538 B.C., the mural traces the chronology from Marathon and Alexander the Great through the crucial conflicts of ancient times up to the Cruse.des, the battles of Hastings and Crecy, Constantinople and Granaoa and so to t}~odern days, Saratoga of .Americnn Revolutionary fame, Waterloo nnd Gettysburg, ending ~ith the battle of the Mnrne. This panor~ma of wnr in history is decorative and fA.ctual, showing among other things the progress in invention as applied to military arms from the bows and arrows of Cyrus which were shot from chnriots to the air-craft r.nd 14-inch howitzers of the World \'h.r. In working out the mural, Mr. Johnson followed the naturA.listic school, painting with minut e detail [end exactitude. one, with figur e s nine feet high. The composition is a highly complicated It will suitr..bly adorn the hall, grer1.t en.re having been observed thnt costumes rtnd militnry equipment nre faithful to the period represented. Born in Denver, Col., in 1900, Mr. Johnson studied pninting with Ezra Winter and also with Lucien Simon, in F~ris. ~~nters. He is a member of the Society of Mural His work includes, besides sever al residential murnls, "Victorian Ezra", in the Palmer House Hotel, Chicago, A.nd 11 Surrender at Yorktown11 , in the George Washington High School, New York. - - - 0 - - Digitized by Original from NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
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