Behind the Surface: Conserving WPA Murals

Get an intimate look at the decades-long conservation and restoration of Abram Champanier's Alice Mural, a major New Deal–era mural commissioned through the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project. This discussion will trace the mural’s journey from the children's ward at Gouverneur Hospital—where it brought color, fantasy, and joy to a space dedicated to healing—to its return to public view in Another Wonderland: Abram Champanier's Alice Mural at the Museum of the City of New York. 

With opening remarks by Rick Luftglass, Executive Director of the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund, the conversation will be moderated by Barbara Haskell, curator and historian of early twentieth-century American art at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Lilly Tuttle, Curator at the Museum of the City of New York, Larissa W. Trinder, Assistant Vice President of NYC Health + Hospitals Arts in Medicine, and Foreground Conservation will discuss the often-invisible labor that sustains public art over time and what it means to restore a work that was always, at its core, an argument for the necessity of art in human life. 

About the Speakers: 
Barbara Haskell is a long-time curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art, a well-known scholar on American modern art, and author of over thirty publications.  Among the landmark thematic exhibitions she has curated are The American Century: Art & Culture 19001950 (1999), BLAM! The Explosion of Pop, Minimalism and Performance 1958–1964 (1984), and Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 1925–1945 (2020). In addition, she has curated retrospectives and authored accompanying scholarly monographs on a range of early-twentiethcentury and post-war American artists, including H. C. Westermann (1978), Marsden Hartley (1980), Milton Avery (1982), Ralston Crawford (1985), Charles Demuth (1987), Red Grooms (1987), Donald Judd (1988), Burgoyne Diller (1990), Agnes Martin (1992), Joseph Stella (1994),  Edward Steichen (2000), Elie Nadelman (2003), Oscar Bluemner (2005), Georgia O'Keeffe (2009), Lyonel Feininger (2011), Robert Indiana (2013), Stuart Davis (2016), and Grant Wood (2018). In 2003, she was awarded the Lawrence A. Fleischman Award for Scholarly Excellence in the Field of American Art History by the Smithsonian Archives of American Art. 

Lilly Tuttle has been a curator at the Museum of the City of New York since 2012. In that time she has curated numerous exhibitions including City Game: Basketball in New York (2020), Analog City: NYC Before Computers, and People, Place, and Influence: The Collection at 100 (2023). She has also served as co-curator on exhibitions including This is New York: 100 Years of the City in Art and Pop Culture (2023) and New York at Its Core (2016), and most recently Art Deco City: New York Postcards from the Leonard A. Lauder Collection (2024). Lilly received a Ph.D. in U.S. History from NYU and a B.A. from Yale in American Studies. She often speaks to graduate students about the field of public history, has served in leadership roles in the American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians, and is a member of the New York Academy of History. 

Larissa W. Trinder is Senior Director of NYC Health + Hospitals Arts in Medicine. Before joining the largest public health care system in the country, Larissa worked in the health and human service non-profit sector for over 20 years. She is an advocate for the integration of visual and creative arts as an expression to advance patient health outcomes, to enhance staff engagement, and to create a positive impact on the community. Larissa has a Master’s degree in Public Policy from the Robert F. Wagner graduate school of public service at New York University.
 

Rick Luftglass is a seasoned philanthropy professional who has worked in the private, philanthropic and nonprofit sectors. He began his career in New York City cultural nonprofits, with a particular focus on jazz and immigrant cultures, received an MBA at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business and spent 16 years at Pfizer, where he served as Executive Director of the Pfizer Foundation and Senior Director of Corporate Philanthropy and Community Engagement. Mr. Luftglass has served as a consultant for private foundations, including the Annie E. Casey Foundation, and as a grants reviewer for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Choice Neighborhoods and the Department of Education’s Promise Neighborhoods initiatives, which were part of the Obama White House’s flagship neighborhood revitalization strategy.

Another Wonderland is made possible with leading support from the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund. Special thanks to advocate, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Thank you to sponsors, Bloomberg Philanthropies, The Knapp Family Foundation, and New York State Council on the Arts, as well as to other generous donors. 

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.