Depression era murals, which have been covered since the mid 1960s at the University of Rhode Island were unveiled to the public yesterday afternoon. The paintings lie above the entrance to the 900-seat auditorium in Edwards Hall.
When construction workers discovered the murals, painted by Rhode Island artist Gino Conti, during a renovation project on Edward Hall in 2010, work came to a halt and art restoration professionals were hired to remove and prepare the art to be redisplayed.
University of Rhode Island Vice President Robert A. Weygand said it was a coincidence the artwork was initially brought to the URI by a government funded in the ‘30s project and the murals was discovered were decades later by a government funded project at the university called the American Reinvestment and Recovery program.
From 1939 to 1940, the Works Progress Administration commissioned Conti to paint a five-piece mural for the university. The WPA was a project put in place by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to create jobs during the recession.
Discovery of artworks commissioned by the WPA was especially exciting for URI's Department of Art History Professor Ron Onorato who had been previously asked to study WPA art in Rhode Island.
"It was thrilling for me to finish the project," Onorato said. "And see where [the artwork] fit here at Edwards."Onorato explained that when his research told him WPA artwork was painted at URI, he "couldn't figure out where they were."Onorato described Conti's murals as a "hybrid between modernism and traditional work," that Conti was well-trained and well known for painting.
Conti moved as an infant to the United States from Italy in 1903. He later studied at the Rhode Island School of Design and traveled to Europe where he was influenced by abstraction, cubism and figurative drawing. Three out of five murals restored at URI present images of industry, agriculture, and community.
Professor of 20th Century Art History, Pamela Warner, said Conti painted in a "…language of classical allegory modernizing it with cubism."
URI President David M. Dooley was excited that he was able to participate in an investment of culture and history at the university. When Dooley was approached with news about the discovery of the murals, he said he was happy that it was a positive set back in construction. He said, "let us take the effort and little extra money to restore these murals.""[The murals] are a treasure of the past that provide a lens into our history", Dooley said, "It gives us a look back at that time who we are, what we're thinking, what we've learned and what we can learn from art history."