Tag Archives: murals

Maxo Vanka Murals & St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church in Millvale

Today’s preservation month post is inspired by the Millvale Musical Festival, which is happening on Saturday, May 13. Millvale continues to gain popularity as a destination for breweries, music, community projects and some impressive community events. If you are headed to Millvale then you need to know about the Maxo Vanka murals, which might be one of the best kept secrets in Pittsburgh.

If you are headed to Millvale for the music festival, you might want to take a little break to check these unique works of art. Even if you are not headed to the music festivals, the Maxo Vanka murals are worth an hour of your Saturday. More details on visiting the murals below.

Photo credit: St. Nicholas Church website.

From Route 28, St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic church looks like an unassuming church building that is tucked away on the bluff. Inside the church, the decor is anything but ordinary, the walls of the church are covered with 25 murals by the artist Maxo Vanka. What makes these church murals unique are the political statements found in several of the scenes. The Maxo Vanka murals have been compared to the works of Mexican muralist Diego Rivera and some of the murals of the Works Progress Administration artists.

Croatian Mother Raises Her Son for War, Maxo Vanka, 1937. Photo credit: Society to Preserve Millvale Murals of Maxo Vanka.

All of the murals can be viewed online here.

The other unique thing about the murals is that they have their own nonprofit that works to preserve, restore and promote the murals to an audience outside of the congregation. The Society to Preserve the Millvale Murals of Maxo Vanka was founded in 1991 and has worked to put the murals on the National Register of Historic Places.

If you are interested in learning more, start with the SPMMMV website at vankomurals.org.

Pittsburgh filmmaker Kenneth Love made a documentary about the murals in 2012, “Maxo Vanka’s Masterpiece: The Murals at St. Nicholas Church”. You can purchase a DVD of the documentary from the church.

Visiting the Maxo Vanka Murals

Docent led tours are held every Saturday at 11am, Noon and 1pm. Tours last about an hour. Note that tours may be cancelled or postponed due to parish activities. It is recommended that you register in advance for tours. Private tours are available on request. If you are visiting Pittsburgh on a weekday, be sure to reach out for a tour or if the church is open, you should be able to stop by and see the murals in person.

More information on the VankaMurals.org website. The Society to Preserve the Millvale Murals of Maxo Vanka is also on Facebook.

WPA Murals in San Francisco’s Coit Tower

Detail of one of the murals in Coit Tower.

Last November, I had the good fortune to visit San Francisco. San Francisco has a nonprofit, SF City Guides, that offers free walking tours of a variety of places around the city. Since it was raining we opted for the indoor tour of Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill. If you enjoyed seeing the murals of Maxo Vanka, I highly recommend a visit to Coit Tower to see the fresco murals from the Works Progress Administration artists. The skill of the fresco artists is impressive and these murals also contain many political messages.

Nonprofit completes conservation of St. Nicholas murals (triblive.com)

#tbd: Paint a mural during the Three Rivers Arts Festival

The Three Rivers Arts Festival opened yesterday. Lots of people are planning on coming down to see the art, but come between 11am and 2pm from today through June 14th and you can help create it. Muralist Kim Beck has begun stenciling an 850-foot mural underneath the Fort Duquesne Bridge and is ready for volunteers to help fill in the “paint by number” with black, white and gray paint.

Looking at her Tumblr, you can see that Kim Beck (previously featured on I Heart PGH) has a fascination with the mundane and ephemeral aspects of the urban landscape, like billboards, sky writing and plastic security fencing. She carries that idea forward here with the mural that depicts common, hardy, native plants. In other words, weeds. I like the project because it works at different scales; up close I think it will read as almost abstract because of how large the plants will be, and from the other side of the river it will be cool to see weeds sprouting at the foot of the city.

If you miss the window to help with the mural, you should still stop by and see some of the items on display. Riverlife has partnered with the Pittsburgh chapter of the American Institute of Architects to showcase past proposals by young architects on how to better utilize “urban voids”. The proposals were submissions to the Young Architects Studio Competition over the last few years, which was created as a way for young architects to express themselves and be involved in Design Pittsburgh, an annual event held by the AIA to celebrate architecture and give awards for design. The exhibit will last all summer, and Riverlife is planning events in the outdoor exhibit for every Wednesday through the end of August. Stay tuned for more details on those events as they become available. The mural and gallery are collectively known as #tbd, so follow Riverlife on Twitter, search that hashtag or just keep reading I Heart PGH.

So come down and create some art of your own, this weekend or any day until the Arts Festival closes on June 14th. Between 11am and 2pm you can help paint a mural under the Fort Duquesne Bridge. If you’re walking, it’s most easily accessed by walking towards the Point fountain and turning right after walking under the bridge. When you hit the Allegheny River, walk upstream until you see people with brushes and rollers. See you there.

More Public Art Please

Image by wallyg via FlickrA few years ago I attended an informational meeting about the Sprout Fund’s public art program to learn more about murals in cities. What I took away from that brief meeting was a new appreciation of the idea of public art – I had never thought much about the idea of bringing art to people in their neighborhoods. Museums are great and Pittsburgh has some great museums but you have to go there to see the art. The Sprout Fund’s program was based on the public art program in Philadelphia which now has over 2200 murals around the city.

Pittsburgh has always had some interesting public art – some of which has been lost and found over the years and the Sprout Fund has supported the addition of new murals each year. Click here to read about some of the new public art along the Great Allegheny Passageway.

If you are interested in learning more about Public Art – check out this work shop on Saturday, October 25, 2008 called Public Art 101. This day long workshop is being held at Point Park University Downtown and the presenters are involved in Public Art in Albuquerque, NM, Boston, MA and Pittsburgh. Continue reading →